The busty young woman who stood next to him by the mail sorting bins asked what had happened, where he had gone. "I attempted suicide," he said. "Well," she criticized, "you must not have tried very hard. You're not good at that either, are you?" Anti-psychotic drugs were still in his system. He felt exhausted, mentally blank, with a wad of cotton in his mouth. He focused on putting the letters in their correct street and block boxes, the work endless. Eventually he was walking home.
When he had thought he was dying or dead, there was a blur of poignant images, ordinary reality blasted away as in a tornado. The inner world was nothing but unrelieved pictures coming fast enough for an intense grasp of each, then replaced by another, equally devastating or dear: landscapes of words, then dead children, horizons of war machines, nuclear explosions decimating an entire city, then another, yet another...also perfect little birds chirping on 
exquisitely detailed narrow branches with new leaves just coming out, the sun as yet not fully up, shimmering lakes, huge storms, fish leaping out of the water, a tiny skiff, its lone occupant rowing out to sea as night fell, an intricate array of forms pulsing together in a cell, a multitude of unique snowflakes, a delicious looking pile of fresh hot pancakes oozing with melted butter and pure maple syrup, the boy hungry and just digging in...
His kaleidoscopic introspection seemed to last months. It was less, hours at most. He found himself for a time on a locked mental ward. He was not altogether himself. Partly to pass the time, he took paper and pencils the candy striper volunteers offered him and made pleasant countryside sketches or simple, upbeat drawings of himself. Another, darker side must have still been lurking. He would come back to his bed later and find under the pillow his panoramic pictures had been altered into scenes of horror. His face and head figures were transformed into skulls. It was disturbing to have an independent, unconscious side, odd to realize this malevolent identity was the superior artist.
On his way to his digs after that first day back at work, he contemplated the room. It was actually a brightly lit, spacious place, with banks of windows opening onto a large, well tended and full of life garden. Yet to him it was a lonely space, all the more so for the mess he had made of things by nearly killing himself. He knew nobody in that house, had no car, no telephone. Now he had but a tenuous hold on employment too. Maybe he ought to simply finish what he had started.
Arriving home, he checked his mailbox. There were two or three pieces of advertising that he quickly threw away. There also was a small red envelope addressed to him. He opened it and discovered a Valentine. Inside was the typical printed message, but in neat cursive were the words: "I think you're wonderful. Would you be my Valentine?" It was signed: "A Mystery Friend." There was no return info.
The vivid, happy images from that near-death experience seemed more real now than the violence, anger, and war of his other head tripping. He had no idea who had sent him the card. He had not thought more than a dozen people knew of his existence, did not believe any would have felt that way about him. Yet when he went out to get supper he had a smile on his face. His step was lighter. If something so nice and unexpected could still occur, what else might happen? Maybe he would go on after all. Yes, he pondered, "I'll get a better job, go back to school, perhaps find out who wants to be my Valentine, maybe even fall in love."
[NPR has encouraged radio listeners to write short fiction that, if read aloud, would be 3-5 minutes in length. This turns out to be a piece of about 500-1000 words. The above, ready on 2/14/2018, was my first such effort.]