UNTITLED

the postcard

Copyright: all rights reserved. Please don't steal anything. It'll not make you a better writer, or a better person for that matter. Enjoy.

UNTITLED

dedicated to Jolla and all the other people who made Valentine's Day 2014 less of a living hell.

This is the story of a postcard. It was printed on a bright Monday morning in a factory in Peebles, cut into shape and painted scarlet red. Two weeks later, the factory owners shipped the postcard to London. A tiny bookstore called Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey took the postcard in, along with a dozen of its brothers and sisters. They were all displayed at the front of the store in oak wooden drawers, opened to reveal all sorts of pens and quills and the thickest notepaper.

The shop attendant, a skinny girl who always seemed to have a pencil in hand and a sheet of paper in her pocket, looked after the postcard well. Now and then a customer would come in, take a look at the postcard and its siblings, and take one of them away. But the scarlet postcard stayed at the bookstore many weeks, until one day the cold February wind brought an old man to the bookstore.

Shoulders hunched, narrowing his eyelids, he peered at the shop's display. The familiar tinkling of the doorbell sounded as he stepped inside and shook the early spring rain off his bust umbrella.

The shop attendant left her apple tree drawing for what it was and rushed over to the man, who smelled like coffee and old people.

'I would like to buy a postcard.' he replied solemnly to the How-can-I-help-you-sir that is a second nature to well-worn shop attendants.

'Of course sir. It's this way.'

As the man leaned over, pressing a magnifying glass to his left eye to replace his misplaced glasses, a drop of rain fell on the right corner of the scarlet postcard. The man noticed it too. With fingers worn by time and other side-effects of a long life, he lifted the scarlet postcard up in the air.

'This one. This one is perfect. I will not need a bag. All right. Thank you, have a good day.' In a matter of seconds, the scarlet postcard was stuffed in a leather bag smelling of coffee and old people and cows and paper.

The man's strides took the postcard to a wooden door, the varnish damaged by wind and rain and snow. This door didn't have a bell, but opened with the clicking sound of a key being turned in a lock. Inside, it was dusky and old and dusty. The bag was set down, the postcard retrieved and placed on a mantelpiece. The old man's hands shook and trembled. They heated water, poured tea in a chipped cup (spilled a few drops) and set upright the fallen framed photograph of two elderly men - only one of them sitting in the same room - with brilliant smiles. The man sighed. Heaving moaning groaning he got up from his chair. The postcard was laid on the table, an old-fashioned fountain pen as its neighbour. The man went for another cup of tea.

The second cup of tea was cold and throat-burning and very much whiskey. The chipped cup remained chipped. Then the pen was lifted up up up in the air and pressed to the scarlet postcard with an inevitability that left a blue dot on the left upper corner. And then a line. And another. Lines and curls and dots drew a word. And another. And then another.

My dear Peter.

And then

I hope you are doing well. The nurses say you are, but they could be lying to keep me away. They still won't let me see you, and say it's for the best because I might upset you.

'Seeing someone who's unfamiliar to him is too much for him to handle.' one of your nurses said to me. Unfamiliar! When did your life partner of sixty years become someone unfamiliar? I know the answer to that question, of course. It's not your fault. And it's not the nurse's either, but being separated from you brings out the worst in me.