Deliver Us from Evil

(The Refrain)

Informed by recent news headlines about the U.S. Postal Services ongoing economic crisis, this story details the work-a-day activities in a postal facility, as its workers struggle to provide reliable customer and delivery services in competition with the rise of the Internet. The focus is on one well-meaning postal worker combating a malicious manager's antagonisms, while battling his own inner demon.

Hector Soto, a U.S. postal worker with a fifteen-year career as a mail carrier, abruptly fi nds himself dismissed from duties by a manipulative manager rumored to be having an affair with his wife, Myra. When he confronts Myra, a violent exchange ensues and she bans him from their home by court order.

Now brooding in his rental apartment, he reminisces through his collection of diaries he began as a boy abused by his domineering father, when his only friend and confi dant had been a G.I. Joe action fi gure. At first, his G.I. Joe (his alter ego) had spoken to him in his thoughts, until, one day, shockingly it materialized to advise him face to face.

Joe faded from Hector's life when he became a teen, but has returned, inducing hallucinations and urges of murderous wrath. Soon Joe materializes as a ghostly phantom warrior, taunting Hector with Myra's infidelity and her conspiracy to take his beloved daughter from him. Despite Hector's efforts to resist, he finds himself succumbing to Joe's dark counsel.