Essential Services...

Rene pulled into the full parking lot and parked the transit in its assigned spot.

He emptied the collected mail and carded items. Placed them into flat tubs and carried everything into the football field-sized one-story building.

Normally he would have parked at the docks and used a wheeled rack to carry everything, but now the one hundred kilos of mail and equipment were as light as a feather.

He walked through the haphazard snow cleared the parking lot. The sensors on the sliding doors detected the chipped access card Rene had in his right chest pocket.

He went straight to the clerk's desk and resorted his end of the daily mail.

"WOULD ALL DELIVERY AGENTS MEET AT THE SUPERVISOR OFFICE."

The announcement repeated a couple more times. Rene made his way to the front office. He greeted other Letter Carries. There were nods on serious faces. No one was in a joking mood. It seemed that no one wanted to joke during an apocalypse.

"Hey, asshole. What's up?" Except for Marc. He wasn't scared of the apocalypse. That and he was an asshole. Nice guy.

"Not much. There's a bit of traffic outside and oh an apocalypse. The world as you know it is now over." Rene smiled.

Marc laughed, "Is that all. I thought it was something serious."

"How's your back?" Marc was dealing with back pain due to injury on the job. Letter Carriers in Canada were five times more injured than any other service in the federal government.

"It's great. Everything cleared up since the flash."

"Is that what we're calling it now? The Flash?" Rene asked.

"Well fuck. What else would you call it?" Rene nodded his head. It was as good a name as any. "Oh hey. Accept my contact." Rene sent a friend request from the dumb Xerys System.

Marc saw the pop-up and accepted. "Neat. My cellphone stopped receiving a signal. I can use this to call my wife and kids."

"If you think that's neat, watch this." Rene took out his cellphone and opened his contacts list. "Xerys scan contact list."

{Scanned.}

"Xerys send a friend request to everyone on the list."

{Requests sent.}

Everyone started getting friend request pop-ups.

The Superintendent of the station Dan noticed. "That's a great idea, Rene. Everyone started doing the same please." When everyone was done getting reconnected to their social circles using the Xerys System Dan continued. "Now that everyone's connected this is going to come in really handy. Canada Post has been declared an Essential Service. Please report to the nearest Police or RCMP station for deployment. Be careful out there. It's a new world. You won't know what's dangerous and what's not. Oh, by the way, Rene you get credit for this idea. I'm sending it to the main office. Hopefully, they'll pass it on up the chain."

"Fuck that Dan. I need to get my kids from school." Bob complained.

"Go get your kids. Stay in your uniform and the police will let you get through faster. Then report."

"Well ok. I going now." Bob calmed but left quickly anyway, other Letter Carriers followed.

"Guess what asshole?" Said Marc.

"What's that asshole club co-founder?" Rene asked.

"We've been drafted. See you on the front lines." Marc laughed as he too left to go get his kids from school as well.

Rene sighed as he followed his friend out of the station. He had to clear his car of the foot of snow and ice that had built up since this morning.