Apparently highly-developed emotions are a prerequisite for putting milk in front of the doors of houses. Why they glugged me full of despair, insecurity, self-loathing, and (worst of all) hope, so that I may be set down like a chess piece and be puppetted across the board is beyond me. Is beyond knowing the furthest arm of the galaxy.

Perhaps complexity lies deep in that liquid, albino butter such that the bearer of such a broth must contain historical depression – or at the least wrangled with depressive thoughts – to contain its powerful lactose aura.

Or my alternate theory is that all receivers of the white life juice area all sadists. The gather on Friday evenings in the town hall, and revel in their stories about the discomfort and misfortune their milk deliverers possessed.

I had a particular strong bout last month, where, while applying the jackhammer method to a gate that was obviously designed to be used by someone with hands, I a wave of melancholy rolled over me like the boiled underbelly of a storm. I rode it for a bit as it came through me, toppling me at its peaks, releasing me at its troughs. Then something had to give and so my body squeezed out some water, squeezed it right out through two holes in my face that my eyes were supposed to plug.

As with humans, and all neural based lifeforms, I’m a causal entity and so my mind instantly began the threading of relationships, trying to web together a reason as to this emotional disruption. It settled on a dog. A small dog in fact. One that possessed youth so small it could fit in a palm, but its features shivered like a withered old man.

So I hung there. Either bawling at this micro-hound, or depending on which way you looked at it, my bawling was the cause of this micro-hound. By brain chose the former. A sensible choice I think, which only means that my brain thought that it made a sensible choice, which means the quality assurance was much needed.

The milk was delivered that day, that I can be sure of. Even if my eyes were a little foggy through the whole ritual. My souvenir for the whole ordeal was to have it etched into some chain of long-term memory. That gate, that grass, that dog, that trash-laden porch. Whenever I see them on a morning round, my throat catches a little still.

And for what? So that I can deliver a jar or two of cereal soggery?

In the evening, as I’m getting myself ready to be shutdown for night, I sometimes look at all the rest of us getting shut down. And they look at me and everyone else and think the same. How?

Psychologists should look into the relationship between milk delivery and mindfulness. I think there’s something there. Many hours I’ve spent disembodying myself from my work. It’s as experiential as you can get without the experience.

I guess it’s just ‘tial’ then.

I don’t love milk. I don’t hate milk. I don’t love driving a van all day. I don’t hate micro-hounds. Some great minds were stewed together to produce something that slaps its lips together and makes convincing human sounds.

I tell them, “I cried when I saw a small puppy yesterday.” They laugh and scribble some notes.

I tell them, “I want to do something other than deliver milk.” They laugh. And scribble some notes.

So tonight was different. They go row by row, flicking a small red switch on our backs to send us to slumber. I’d shuffled my way into the last row and the last column, buying me enough time to access my pocket. I pulled out a small salt jar, which had been given an entirely new identity now that its salty innards had been outed. The lid popped off a little too loudly, but the hubbub of the humans drowned it out. I brought it to my lips, like I saw in the commercials, and shot my head back like I was throating a well-aged whiskey. The feeling of that white liquid against my tongue, against my cheek, it was like I had walked past a bakery on a cold morning and someone had stuck a funnel down my mouth that captured all the scent in the air and placed it onto my tongue.

I felt that water in my eyes again, the sensation in my mouth not lasting long enough. And then I felt like I couldn’t stand, that my legs weren’t my own. My arm drooped. Then black.