Dear Wigleaf,

The thing that has always freaked me out about postcards is that there's no envelope. So you can't spill your biggest secrets or scandals or fears unless you're okay with all that stuff being available to, theoretically, the entire world—and even if the entire world read your postcard, you'd never even know, because there would be no broken seal, no torn packaging. Isn't that kind of terrifying? That a stranger could know all about your bad date or kidney infection or dislike of your great aunt's chili casserole, and you would have no idea?

Once, at a thrift store about a half hour from my apartment, I found a stack of postcards from the 1920's. One of them had a picture of two women on it, standing on a sepia pier, wearing striped swimsuits that came down to their knees like a halved pantsuit. The postcard was addressed to Phillip, and in some loopy, greenish ink, it read, One day you will ask yourself why you didn't regret things sooner. Gloriously dramatic, and yet, incredibly vague.

Perhaps postcards are like an earlier form of reality TV: Would Phillip ever respond to this simple, cold note? What is it that the writer swore he was going to regret? And did he ever grow to regret it, whatever it was? Maybe finding the postcard is like coming across a rerun of Big Brother on TV, and you have no idea what's happening but you want to see it anyway. I wonder, in 90 years, who will find this.

Dramatically yours,
Kyra




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Read Kyra Kondis' story.

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