It was on a thursday morning that Elliot decided to go crazy. It was remarkable, considering his history of psychopathical tendencies was entirely inexistent, and he had not spent a tortured childhood being bullied by his classmates. In fact, he had led a quiet, unremarkable life, and grown into a quiet, unremarkable man. However, as he was raking the lawn on that thursday morning, he happened to glance down, and he was struck by how much the rake looked like giant metallic teeth. If Hell had sharks, he reflected, their grins as they circled up underneath the damned, accompanied by a catchy tune played on a bass guitar, would look like a twin pair of rakes: a mercilessly cold set of shining metal teeth. He decided to expand on this train of thought, maybe add some more carriages and an extra platform at the station. The rake as a whole, he thought, was a perfect balance between the leverage provided by the stick, and the inherent potential for causing carnage provided by the tool part. This was a thought of such beautiful minimalist perfection that, he decided, the only viable course of action was to go crazy.

Elliot had no wife or children, which was a good thing, he thought. He'd hate to have to murder his own children. Instead, he went back into the garden shed he'd removed the rake from earlier, sat down with a grinding stone, and set to work on sharpening the rake's points. After half an hour or so, every single tooth ended in a sharp point, and he'd managed a rudimentary cutting edge on the four centre points as well. This, he figured, would probably be the part of the rake he'd use the most. Then, he went out into the garden, and hid behind the big bush next to his letterbox. It was nearly eleven in the morning, and generally the postman showed up at this time. Today was no different; he had only been waiting for a few minutes when he heard the familiar squeaking of the postman's old bicycle. He parked his bike by the big oak tree at the start of the street, and started his delivery. As Curt the postman walked up to his driveway, Elliot stepped out from behind his bush. "Morning, Curt!" he said. "I was wondering if you had a moment?" Curt, momentarily startled by his sudden appearance, blinked twice and replied "Uh, yeah, sure. What is it?" Elliot said "Oh, it's nothing much really. I just wanted to ask you what you thought about this?" He stepped onto the sidewalk with the rake loosely held in both hands, took up a pose not unreminiscent of a batter in a baseball game, and brought the rake around in a big sideways arc. He hadn't judged his swing entirely right, so he only grazed Curt's face with the bottom three points. The sharpening job he'd done on the points was quite good though, so he still tore a fairly respectable hole in the left cheek. He pulled back and tried again, this time managing to bury a fair few points into the bone of Curt's skull. The crunching sound it made reminded him of breakfast cereals, and he couldn't help giggling. He'd expected some sort of resistance, but Curt had been too baffled to do anything, and the second blow appeared to have hit some vital bits of head. His eyes glazed over, and he slowly fell to his knees, the rake still sticking out of his head, like a hat set at a rakish angle. Elliot nudged him in the chest with his foot, and wriggled the rake free as Curt toppled backwards. His knees were still bent, so he ended up looking like a man looking up at the sky during a particularly Zen-tastic yoga exercise.

Elliot looked down at the postman he'd just Returned to Sender, expecting to feel some sort of guilt. When he didn't, he took a tissue out of his pocket, wiped some bits off his rake, hefted it over his shoulder, and started walking towards the shopping centre, whistling a merry tune. Today looked like it would be a good day.