The Lady at the Post Office

In almost thirty years on the job, Magdeleine had acquired the ability to read people's lifelines through a few details. She knew everything about others, thanks to her strategic position, but above all her extreme sensitivity. Letters and parcels, telegrams and phone calls passed through her hands from the only two phone booths in the village, which flanked the left wall, but so did people, whose expressions and demeanor ultimately gave little away. With a front-row seat to deaths and births, she saw loves come and go, financial windfalls fall and shipwrecks strike. Her heart swelled with happiness and broke several times a day. She loved her job because it mimicked life in fast forward.