I dropped him off at the start of the round, same as I did every Sunday. This was the last time. The Newspaper, a free one, had pulled the round. We never found out why but we didn’t ask. We just accepted it.
For me it was the end of an era, more significant in my mind perhaps than in that of the paper boy.
A poignant moment. No more deliveries, no more brown envelopes rattling with pay. Will the householders themselves miss the “Target”? Unlikely.
What if it was the last paper delivery “ever”? Easy to let the imagination take hold. Serious significance. The leaving of an old world for a new one. A change in the order, like the closure of the railways.
The last paper, the last letterbox. Move on, move away, don’t look back.
Cars, unaware of the history, race by.
The paper boy walked home.