Ash

from The Post Office by Melissa Leilani Larson

Genre: Drama

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Ash, teenage shut-in plagued by a mysterious illness, dreams of becoming a courier for the Queen.

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ASH

Yes, I think you're right. I can see the courier riding down the narrow road that winds like a ribbon through the trees. She's traveled that road many times, a lantern in her hand and a bag of letters on her back. She climbs down and down, where the foot of the mountain becomes a waterfall that becomes a stream that becomes a brook. And she takes the footpath on the riverbank and cuts through a field of rye, and then a field of sugarcane, and then an open meadow where crickets chirp. I can feel her coming closer.

BADGER: I can see it, just like that.

The courier will come, in her fine uniform with her gilt badge, and deliver that letter. My letter. And I'll take it, following the courier's path back through the fields and up the mountains until I come to the city. I'll go to the palace and find the Queen and volunteer to be a courier myself. I'll get down on my knees and I'll plead, "Make me your courier, that I may travel the country delivering letters on your behalf. I'll do anything as long as I don't have to stay inside all day."