The Archive of Unsent Postcards

The archive accepted postcards that had been bought but never sent. Some were blank. Others began with weather, or the quality of the hotel breakfast, and ended before the writer found room for a signature.

Leonie sorted them by landscape rather than country. Mountains went in one drawer, harbors in another. Hotels with striped awnings occupied two small boxes near the window.

One card showed a station at dusk. On the back someone had written, ‘The train is later than expected, which is fine.’ Nothing followed.

Leonie placed it with the journeys. She liked unfinished messages because they had already let their writers continue elsewhere.

At closing, she covered the boxes with linen cloths. Hundreds of unsent places rested beneath them, no longer waiting to arrive.