Every seven weeks, or thereabouts. Postcards from obscure places. Nowhere big, incidental towns. Oxenholme, Ecclefechan, Newtown Aycliffe. Strange, out-of-the-way places. Did I imagine her in grimy bedsits or posh bed and breakfasts? The same words, every single time. Bridlington, Zeebrugge (do they leave chocolates on your pillow instead of goodbye notes?). Mônchengladbach. Glad, not me. The same scrawled words. I kept them but I ran out of fridge magnets. They’re in an old shoe box—fifty-seven of them. Oyannax, Grasse, Cremona. “Find me here, come soon”. I never did. I moved to Oxenholme and the cards stopped finding me.
I have always liked postcards. I still write them though with the cost of postage you might as well deliver them yourself. I don’t receive as many as I would like. Perhaps I have moved too often.
I wrote ‘postcard’ as a writing prompt and this short tale popped into my head. Perhaps it was the chance to write ‘Ecclefechan’. I’ve never been but it’s one of those places names. It's not necessarily the sort of place you’d send a postcard from. Maybe that’s the idea behind the piece.
You remind me of a box of postcards I have sent from all over the world to my father by his best friend... there are literally hundreds of them and many of them from the most obscure places he could find. He was a director of something-or-other for BA and flew somewhere different most weeks, worked there all his life until BA retired him at 65. I kept every single one.
I might add that each card mentioned the name of a different young lady wined and dined and... well you might guess the rest!
This is really beautiful. Inspiring to see what can be done in 100 words!