Repose

[A lightly erotic postcard, the handwriting on the back in neat capital letters]

“That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste.”


John Green, Paper Towns

[Elegant brush script on a glossy new ( postcard] )

Is your sword as bold as your pen, dear knight?

-Guinevere

[Calvin sends greetings.]

So, are you imaginary?
-C

[The postcard is old but the handwriting is bright black and scrawled.]

When I was four I ate nothing but honey sandwiches for four months.

[Written on the back of this card, the sentiment is short but the lines of the letters are clear and sharp.]

And here I thought this to be dead and gone from the world. One more surprise from this place and one more I hate less than most.

[The postcard comes with a messy scrawl of words on the back.]

Ever been lost at sea?

J.

[The postcard is slightly yellowed, the writing a flowing cursive.]

What say you? Are we not dead?

[ In a rather rushed and unpracticed hand, on the back of an older looking card]

I feel like I should hate small towns and yet, the more I look around here, the more things I experience, the more this card is accurate.

Tell me I'm not crazy? I'd appreciate it.

[The postcard is glossy, with handwriting on the back]

When you look up at the stars, what do you see?

[Warning: link NSFW]

[On the back of a holographic postcard is a message in jagged ink.]

Well, My Queen?

- Lancelot

[The Card is here. Old, frayed at the edges, and undeniably apt. The writing is not writing at all, but type. Old type. Local postmark.]

Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books.
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.

[On Thursday, a strange man arrives in Repose. He has scraggly dark hair and sharp cheekbones, and he wears a suit jacket that is tweed and frayed at the wrists. The man arrives on the Greyhound, and he walks to the local diner. There, he sits in a back booth and spreads out with stacks of old letters and postcards. He spends the day scribbling in a notebook, ordering only coffee, and he stays late into the night. Locals who speak to him hear tales of lost loves and bygone days and old friends, and he shows them postcards that are faded and yellowed and loveworn on the corners. The notebooks he scribbles in, he says, is a memoir, an epistolary, an art long forgotten, and he speaks loudly and often about simpler times when people had to wait for the mail to come and bring words and love and stories. There's something magical about the man, whose accent is Northeastern and thick, and, after midnight, he pushes his horn-rimmed glasses up on his nose and collects his belongings. He makes the walk back to the Greyhound without incident, though he leaves a trail of postcards in his wake.

The following morning, the postcards seem to be everywhere. They swirl on the breeze and dance on sidewalks. The postcards catch in tree branches and flutter into open windows and doors. The postcards are blank now, if just as yellowed. The local grocery and craft stores all receive unexpected shipments of postcards that morning, and the antique store has vintage postcards prominently displayed. Lastly, Residents each receive a handwritten, personally addressed postcard of their own, one which provides them with a famous pairing for a writing endeavor that is about to begin.]