When you left for work you forgot to say goodbye. Or maybe you didn't. You were wearing a pantsuit. What's up with the pantsuits lately?

I have to tell you, the mail doesn't come anymore.

Or maybe it comes, but there's a hole in our mailbox, so maybe it goes to the other side of the world. I heard there's a waR on there. I also heard the waR came over here, through our mailbox. They say the mailmen are scared to go out in this economic climate. It's been raining a lot, too, and lightning something fierce. All the mailwomen are dead, for instance. And there's no one at the post office when you need to vent your frustrations. Just a note on the door: If you're looking for the mail, look around you fool. There's a waR on. Duck. So I duck. And a rocket-propelled grenade crashes through the bulletproof glass. Sounds like a D minor, I think, wetting my finger to test the wind. The post office explodes. So I lie down in a crater, burning, and wonder where time went.

The mail came today.

I signed for the package: a toy guitar, amp, and pedal: for toy chords. I hooked up the toy, and played you a little emotion. I set sail on the chord--a D minor. I played it over and over. I wanted to bring it to you. I asked the mailman could he take me there. I floated away on that little emotion.

The mailman sniped me from the air. He laid me to rest in the mailbag. We flew around, and sniped other mailmen from the air. We landed on your roof, careful to avoid the electricords. We visited you at work, where you had twenty sets of hands, answering twenty sets of phones, with just one pantsuit. There were so many electricords, genuine cords. I climbed out the mailbag to bring you that little emotion. I stepped on the toy pedal, and set sail on the chord--a D minor. I asked you, Do you like it? Do you like this chord? I think it's awesome. I looked down at my feet, and shook back and forth, slowly. Over and over, droning: D - F - A, D - F - A, D - F - A.

I traveled the space between us, on an electrichord, just to hear what you were saying, because you were speaking to twenty sets of pantsuits at once. I asked you, What's up with the pantsuits lately? What did you think of the chord? Did you feel it? You laid down one of the phones. And for the first time, I noticed a tiny throat-hole, where you could have had an Adam's apple--Did you have an Adam's apple?--you were whispering, That's just a toy, you fool. It's not real. That was not a genuine emotion, not a genuine cord. You need to get a job, you fool. So I said, You don't understand. This is as real as it gets... as real as I get. I bought this toy myself, and braved destruction in the face of waR, just to bring you this little emotion. And that's all I have to give. The phone rang. You looked at it. Answer that, I said, and I'll never visit you at work again. You said, Goodbye.

I got on the roof and, surrounded by eletricords, I played the toy chord. It began to rain as I stepped on the pedal. The mailmen stopped killing each other for a few seconds, just long enough to look at me. They said, That chord is awesome. I said, I know, you fools. I know it's awesome; it's the sound of waR. I held up the guitar and said, Thank you for bringing me this, finally. I broke the toy. A lightning bolt ran through my spine. And I traveled the space between us, in less time than it took to strike the cord.