Going Postal

One will do!
    “But…but…I am not worthy!”
    Acquire worth with speed, Moist von Lipwig! Bring back the light! Open the doors! Stay not the messengers about their business!
    Moist looked down at the golden light coming up from around his feet. It sparkled off his fingertips and began to fill him up from inside, like fine wine. He felt his feet leave the dais as the words lifted him up and spun him gently.
    In the beginning was a Word, but what is a word without its messenger, Moist von Lipwig? You ARE the Postmaster!
    “I am the Postmaster!” Moist shouted.
    The mail must move, Moist von Lipwig! Too long have we been bound here .
    “I will move the mail!”
    You will move the mail?
    “I will! I will!”
    Moist von Lipwig?
    “Yes?”
    The words came like a gale, whirling the envelopes in the sparkling light, shaking the building to its foundations.
    Deliver Us!

CHAPTER 6
    Little Pictures
The postmen unmasked • A terrible engine
• The new pie • Mr. Lipwig thinks about stamps
• The messenger from the Dawn of Time
    “M R. L IPVIG ?” said Mr. Pump.
    Moist looked up into the golem’s glowing eyes. There had to be a better way of waking up in the morning. Some people managed with a clock, for heavens’ sake.
    He was lying on a bare mattress under a musty blanket in his newly excavated apartment, which smelled of ancient paper, and every bit of him ached.
    In a clouded kind of way, he was aware of Pump saying: “The Postmen Are Waiting, Sir. Postal Inspector Groat Said That You Would Probably Wish To Send Them Out Properly On This Day.”
    Moist blinked at the ceiling.
    “Postal inspector? I promoted him all the way to postal inspector?”
    “Yes, Sir. You Were Very Ebullient.”
    Memories of last night flocked treacherously to tapdance their speciality acts on the famous stage of the Grand Old Embarrassing Recollection.
    “Postmen?” he said.
    “The Brotherhood Of The Order Of The Post. They’re Old Men, Sir, But Wiry. They’re Pensioners Now, But They All Volunteered. They’ve Been Here For Hours, Sorting The Mail.”
    I hired a bunch of men even older than Groat…
    “Did I do anything else?”
    “You Gave A Very Inspirational Speech, Sir. I Was Particularly Impressed When You Pointed Out That ‘Angel’ Is Just A Word For Messenger. Not Many People Know That.”
    On the bed, Moist slowly tried to cram his fist into his mouth.
    “Oh, And You Promised To Bring Back The Big Chandeliers And The Fine Polished Counter, Sir. They Were Very Impressed. No One Knows Where They Got To.”
    Oh gods , thought Moist.
    “And The Statue Of The God, Sir. That Impressed Them Even More, I Would Say, Because Apparently It Was Melted Down Many Years Ago.”
    “Did I do anything last night that suggested I was sane ?”
    “I Am Sorry, Sir?” said the golem.
    But Moist remembered the light, and the whispering of the mail. It’d filled his mind with…knowledge, or memories that he didn’t remember ever acquiring.
    “Unfinished stories,” he said.
    “Yes, Sir,” said the golem calmly. “You Talked About Them At Length, Sir.”
    “I did?”
    “Yes, Sir. You Said—”
    —that every undelivered message is a piece of space-time that lacks another end, a little bundle of effort and emotion floating freely. Pack millions of them together and they do what letters are meant to do. They communicate, and change the nature of events. When there’s enough of them, they distort the universe around them.
    It had all made sense to Moist. Or, at least, as much sense as anything else.
    “And…did I actually rise up in the air, glowing gold?” said Moist.
    “I Think I Must Have Missed That, Sir,” said Mr. Pump.
    “You mean I didn’t, then.”
    “In A Manner Of Speaking, You Did, Sir,” said the golem.
    “But in common, everyday reality, I didn’t?”
    “You Were Lit, As It Were, By An Inner Fire, Sir. The Postmen Were Extremely Impressed.”
    Moist’s eye lit on the winged hat, which had been thrown carelessly on the desk.
    “I’m never going to live up to all this, Mr. Pump,” he said. “They want a saint, not someone like me.”
    “Perhaps A Saint Is Not What They Need , Sir,” said the golem.
    Moist sat up, and the blanket dropped away.
    “What happened to my clothes?” he said. “I’m sure I hung them neatly on the floor.”
    “I Did, In Fact, Try To Clean Your Suit With Spot Remover, Sir,” said Mr. Pump. “But Since It Was Effectively Just One Large Spot, It Removed The Whole