Royal Hell

Royal Mail have recently escalated their stalker antics to levels that feel less public service and more low-budget dystopian thriller. If it wasn’t bad enough that they already track us through our PDAs like tagged wildlife on a migration route — every pause monitored, every delay questioned, every extra minute spent inhaling a meal deal treated like gross misconduct — they’ve now installed CCTV cameras in all the vans. Actual cameras. Front and back. Apparently it’s for “safety.” Which is corporate language for: we no longer trust you to breathe without supervision. So now, if you accidentally flip off a particularly cunty customer while unloading twenty-seven identical Amazon parcels outside a bungalow called The Retreat, somewhere in the depot a manager can replay it in HD, sip Costa from a paper cup, and nodding gravely about “professional standards.” To reassure us, they insist there are absolutely no cameras inside the vans. Because that, apparently, would constitute an invasion of privacy. I mean thank God for boundaries. Otherwise they may as well start filming us crying into melted meal deals, having mental breakdowns in lay-bys, and urinating into emergency Lucozade bottles during rural routes. Naturally, Conspiracy Kev doesn’t believe a word of it. Of course he doesn’t. This is the same man who once informed me — completely sincerely — that rainwater is caused by drones “upending giant buckets over Britain to control public morale.” A sentence he delivered while standing in an actual thunderstorm, completely drenched, pointing accusingly at a cloud. Now he’s convinced Royal Mail are not only watching us, but actively listening too. One afternoon he sits beneath the van camera squinting suspiciously up at it, tapping the casing with one cautious finger, like he’s trying not to wake it. “Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re watching us right now, Mand.” Then, naturally, twenty minutes later, he completely forgets about the camera and launches into a full-scale rant about the BIG boss. Not a casual moan either. An event. Volume. Passion. Hand gestures. Spit physically leaving the mouth. “He’s too familiar with the girls in the office,” Kev says darkly. “Always hovering around like a fly to shit.” Then suddenly — Silence. Kev freezes. His entire face drains of colour so fast it’s like somebody’s yanked a plug somewhere behind his eyes. The camera. I physically watch the regret arrive. Then, because Kev is Kev, he starts backpedalling so aggressively I swear the van actually rolls backwards. “But obviously I don’t believe any of those rumours,” he says loudly. “Never struck me as that type. Respectable bloke.” A nervous wink. “Best boss I’ve ever had.” Royal Mail has turned us all into paranoid conspiracy theorists. And honestly? That’s probably the point. Today, however, I’m not with Kev. Today I’m paired with Phil. Or “Limp Leg Phil,” as I cruelly and affectionately refer to him. It’s one of the hottest days of the year so far. Not pleasant hot. Not “lovely weather” hot. More trapped-in-an-oven hot. The kind of heat where the air itself feels hostile. Sweat pours off us in greasy waves. Our bottled water has now gone fully HOT. Not warm. HOT. Like drinking flavourless tea brewed inside Satan’s greenhouse. But we’re deep in the arse end of nowhere with no shops nearby, so boiled water it is. I am literally frying. My skin crackles in the heat like supermarket bacon. Even my eyeballs feel overheated. Still the parcels keep coming. Every now and then the PDA barks at us with increasing hostility. “GET A FUCKING MOVE ON.” “CHOP BLOODY CHOP.” Or my personal favourite: “FASTER, YOU MELTING CUNT.” Oh I’m sorry. Did collapsing face-first into a hedge to die dramatically affect productivity targets? Because honestly I’m not far off. If I keel over from dehydration out here, I doubt there’ll be so much as a mention of my passing. No framed photo in the office. No little memorial beside the kettle. Maybe a quick announcement before morning dispatch: Amanda has sadly passed away. Please ensure tracked items are still scanned correctly. Still, somehow, we continue. Only a hundred parcels left. Fifty each. I glance over at Phil hobbling beside me. Actually… Make that eighty for me and twenty for Phil. Poor bastard looks like his kneecaps are melting in the heat. The afternoon drags on and somehow grows even hotter. The heat is no longer weather. It’s punishment. It’s brought out the absolute worst in both of us. I’m irritated, tetchy and approximately one customer complaint away from launching my boiling hot Evian bottle directly through somebody’s conservatory window. Sweat is leaking from places I didn’t previously know could perspire. Apparently your arse crack can sweat. A horrifying discovery. Behind me I’m leaving damp patches across seats and pavements like some exhausted human slug. And I am so thirsty now it’s become spiritual. Then — In the distance — An ice cream van. Beautiful. Haloed in sunlight. I can already picture the Twister I’m about to devour. Cold lime ice. Artificial strawberry. Salvation. “It’s a mirage,” Phil says sorrowfully. My joy melts faster than my imaginary ice lolly. “A cruel trick of the mind.” “Bummer,” I mutter. “I thought I saw an Evian fountain earlier,” he adds quietly. “Turned out to be a wheelie bin.” Phil himself looks one limp away from complete organ failure. I should probably tell him to sit in the van and rest for ten minutes, but Royal Mail don’t do air conditioning because apparently comfort encourages laziness. Besides, even at his current pace — which has now deteriorated from Limp Leg Phil into elderly donkey dragging its hind legs — he’s still technically helping. Barely. Eventually, by some genuine miracle, the van empties. No parcels left. Well… Almost none. There are still a few rogue ones rolling about in the back that I swear weren’t there before. “We can do this,” I say weakly. I sound like a haunted flannel. Our final stop is some kind of community hall. Or possibly a scout hut. Or a place where sadness goes to stack chairs. Inside is piled high with junk. Broken lamps. Boxes of mouldy books. Furniture nobody loved enough to keep. And there, sitting amongst the rubbish like treasure in a landfill, is a pram. Mint condition. Instantly I picture Pickle sitting inside it while I push him around like some deranged cat mother. I want it immediately. Not want. Need. The heat has completely dissolved my moral framework. From the other side of the hall Phil shouts: “Come on! We’re nearly done!” I stare at the pram. Do I? Don’t I? I absolutely do. I grab it instantly. Phil gives me a look. “It’s for Pickle,” I explain defensively, as though this somehow justifies grand theft pram. Honestly, in my current condition, it absolutely does. Phil just nods slowly. “Fair enough.” Finally — finally — every single parcel is delivered. We head back towards the depot and I’m already fantasising about the ice bath waiting for me at home. Fan on full blast. Ice cubes. Near-death recovery. Then suddenly — The PDA erupts into alarm. “MORE PARCELS TO DELIVER.” Again. And again. And again. I stare at Phil. Phil goes pale. Kev-remembers-the-camera pale. “I may have hidden a York of parcels back at the office,” he admits quietly. “What?” Classic Phil. The man has spent years treating parcels like traumatic memories. If he can’t physically see them, apparently they no longer exist. “There’s no getting away with anything now they’re spying on us,” he mutters sadly. That’s right, Phil. You’re exactly why they’re spying on us. Hiding parcels. Taking shortcuts. Limping through rounds like a wounded pirate. Probably quietly abandoning second-class letters in a lay-by. I don’t actually say any of this aloud because the man already looks spiritually crushed. By the time we reach the depot, I’m physically fused to the passenger seat. Peeling myself off it makes a noise no human body should produce. My phone rings. Mum. I answer immediately because she never calls during work unless someone’s died. Instead she says: “William and Kate are here.” I blink. “What?” “They’re staying the night,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’ve put the posh duvet on.” “Right…” “And I bought chicken kievs because you can’t give royalty turkey dinosaurs.” For a moment I genuinely think the heat has fried my brain. “Mum,” I say carefully. “Are you telling me the future King of England is currently in your living room eating garlic butter poultry?” “And I cleared the sill because I didn’t think the ceramic frog with tits was exactly royal guest material.” Probably for the best. Mum lowers her voice conspiratorially. “William’s taller than you’d think.” “Mum, you think everyone’s giant.” When I hang up, I just stand there staring into space for a moment. Too exhausted to even process it properly. Then I turn around — —and Phil is already loading the hidden York into the van. Mountains of parcels. Endless. Towering. We’ll be out until midnight at this rate. I stumble into the depot office to scan something, half delirious now from heat and exhaustion. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead with the tired buzz of something close to dying. The whole place feels strangely quiet. Echoing and hollow. Like an abandoned warehouse everyone ran out of in a hurry. And then I see it. A framed photograph on the wall beside the staff notices. My photograph. Smiling awkwardly in uniform. The same strained smile I use whenever somebody says, “At least you’re out in fresh air.” Underneath it: RIP Amanda She was an average postie… at a push. I stare at it for a long moment. And suddenly all the strange little things throughout the day begin quietly slotting into place. The unbearable thirst. The dizziness. The shimmering roads. The fact nobody offered me a drink. Phil constantly asking if I was “still with him.” Mum calmly informing me that the Prince and Princess of Wales were round for chicken kievs. And that’s when it finally hits me. Of course I’m dead. I must’ve expired in the heat somewhere between parcel seventy-three and an imaginary ice cream van. William and Kate would never settle for kievs.