Just One Postcard Away

The sun had fallen below the horizon and the last smudge of pink that trailed the boundary between land and sky quickly faded to deep blue, almost black. Lucas stirred at his computer, the bright fluorescent light from the monitor waking him out of a restless, muggy sleep. He opened his eyes and blurrily stared at a framed photo of himself and his husband, Daniel, blinking several times to clear his vision. His skin was clammy, his clothes sticky in the humidity, and he lifted his head with a groan from where it had been resting against his arms, folded underneath. He grimaced and massaged his face, ran fingers through chestnut brown hair sticking to his forehead and temples and stood up. Unbelievably, where it had been fully light out when he had dozed off it was now dark, hours having passed, but for all the sleep his head was pounding and groggy. Lucas stumbled to the light switch, nearly tripping over his own shoes that he had kicked off carelessly into the middle of the floor. Warm orange light flickered on, and he winced shielding his eyes from the sudden influx. He stood in the front room of his house, old and slightly run down it served as both living room and study to the newlywed couple with big plans for home renovations in the future. Lucas looked over to the computer, the half-written proposal that he had been making progress on idled with the cursor blinking at the end of an unfinished sentence. As he let out a big sigh and prepared to walk into the kitchen, he remembered the parcel that had been delivered earlier in the day, waiting on his kitchen table.

It had been humid all week and after what had felt like an eternity of writer’s block, Lucas had finally made a breakthrough on a book proposal and had been working diligently on it since midday. The silence had been broken by a low susurration that resonated in the air and slowly grew louder and louder. In moments it had pitched up several octaves into a pulsing whine that vibrated through the walls of the house and seemed to be loudest from behind the front door. Red and flaking, the door protested its sudden motion as Lucas opened it with an audible and prolonged groan just as a delivery drone placed a medium sized box on the pathway that led up to the old home. He had carefully brought the box inside but had not opened it instead returning to his book proposal and a newly opened bottle of red wine to get him through.

But now, he chewed his lip, looking at the box from the kitchen doorway uncertainly. It had been posted to him and the return sender sticker was simply labelled, Daniel, and both shipping address and return address were the same. Another. Lucas walked over to the box, placing two hands on either side. He had lost count of how many he had received, how many more he would receive yet. Was this the last? Were there more to come? He tried not to think about them much between deliveries, tried not to count. But with each box that arrived he was left with a growing sense of dread, or was it relief? Lucas looked over to his liquor cabinet and the sparse offerings within. He shouldn’t drink any more today he knew that. His head certainly knew that. Had the cabinet always been so empty? Daniel liked wine more than Lucas, collecting vintage bottles when he could, but lately Lucas couldn’t get enough. But where were they now? Eyes lingering a moment longer on the bare liquor cabinet, its glass doors reflecting his tired gaze back at him, Lucas forewent more alcohol for the moment, instead walking over to the sink. He turned the tap and cupped his hands under the water jetting out burying his head into the pool that formed, gasping at the sharp coldness.

Without drying his face and simply wiping his hands on his dark blue shirt, he walked back over to the parcel. His head was clearer, the effects of the wine that had sunk him into an unrestful slumber earlier was dulled by the chill of the water, even if his headache lingered somewhat. The dread was very real now, more real than it had ever been before. With trembling fingers Lucas tugged at the corners of the brown packing tape that secured the box, digging his fingernails underneath. The orange light overhead was painfully bright, contrasting the black circles under his eyelids. Painstakingly the tape began to lift with a sound like Velcro being pulled apart, taking with it a thin film of the cardboard underneath. Discarding the tape on the table, Lucas opened the two halves of the box to reveal an item encased in layers of brown packing paper. He folded his arms over the box opening as if to prevent himself from seeing what could possibly be inside. This was followed by him laying his entire body down, embracing the box and failing to stifle a sob that escaped between breaths that had become rugged and short. His body trembled as he fought for control, inhaling and exhaling through his nose. He lifted himself and the box up off the table before sinking to the floor on his knees. Tenderly, Lucas picked up the wrapped parcel, throwing the box underneath the table and began to slowly unwrap the packing paper. Layer by layer the soft, shapeless edges of the parcel gave way to a firmness and rigidity that hinted at what lay beneath. Squared edges and right angles formed as the final layers of paper fell away and Lucas was left holding a children’s book, Just One Post Card Away. Two people on opposite sides of the cover, separated by water with one holding a postcard and the other throwing an envelope shaped like a paper plane, post stamp emblazoning its wing, framed by a starry night sky on the left and bright blue on the right. It was a first edition, the, first edition, and Lucas couldn’t help burying his head into the cover, no care for the tears wetting the surface or the drool dripping from his mouth to chin or his sodden hair sticking to the cover. The cover, Lucas thought, was the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen.

Lucas and Daniel had always liked to travel, whether as out and proud lovers, or thick as thieves’ “friends”, they would go anywhere together, experience any place, eat any food. But before that, before their life together, they travelled alone, or in different friend groups, meeting only occasionally, if their paths crossed but no more. Lucas blogged about his travel, and Daniel drew his, capturing their shared and individual experiences through wholly different and unique lenses. As much as he loved travelling, Lucas had never been more excited to return home. A new journey had been waiting for him, and one that he could share with someone else. The product of this partnership could be found in abundance around their home, in the files of manuscripts that lined multiple shelves, to the experimental artwork some of which hung in frames from the walls, most of which were stacked in disorderly piles and shoved wherever they could fit. Or perhaps the greatest evidence of this partnership were the more mundane ones. The shared energy bills stuck to the fridge with magnets, a Netflix account with but a single profile or the simple gold bands that toiled together in a small bowl on the dresser in their bedroom more often than on their fingers.

Lucas reflected on his recent trip abroad, one which he had taken alone. The canals in Venice, the Acropolis, the Raohe Night Market to name a few. He had taken the most important things in his whole life with him and come back significantly lighter. But the burden still weighed down on his shoulders, making it difficult to even get out of bed some mornings, or find the motivation to keep working as every idea, every creative thought seemed to dry up at the tip of a pen stroke or quickly undone in successive taps of the backspace keyboard button. He was ashamed to admit it, however, by the time he had finally gained the confidence to write again dust had built up across his desk in a testament to the neglect of the past several months, even since he had returned home from abroad.

Lucas stood sniffling, wiping the back of his hand across his nose and his eyes with his fingers. Picking up the remains of the box and still holding the book to his chest he walked across the kitchen to a room on the right. The small room off the kitchen, supposedly a third bedroom but with scant offerings of either space or storage, served as Daniel’s art studio. Covered in old, stained carpet just begging to be torn up, the room was equipped with open shelves filled with art supplies, a desk at the far end of the room with a drawing pad, art book, pencils, paints and brushes littered disorderly across its surface and a chest of draws against the wall to the left of the door as you entered. It was above this chest that a bookcase, mounted to the wall was lined with children’s books, all inspired by travel and all first editions, and meticulously ordered, perhaps the only neat things in here. The room was cramped and cluttered and Lucas wasn’t allowed to touch anything in there, lest he incur Daniel’s wrath. “Everything is where I left it!” He would say of the accumulated piles of artwork, character designs and so on. Daniel hadn’t been in here in a while and the floor had become strewn with boxes, some torn open, others flattened and carelessly discarded, littered with the scraps of tape and postage stamps, a recurring motif in Lucas’s life it seemed. If he saw the state that his art studio had degraded to, consigned to nothing more than a rubbish heap, Daniel would be furious. Lucas would have to make sure to clean it up soon, he thought as he tossed the box onto the pile and picked his way over to the desk and sat down on the squeaky, worn office chair. He studied the book cover for a moment before gingerly opening to the first page, deep blue, with silver lettering, Just One Post Card Away by Lucas and Daniel Dwyer-Williams. He turned the page:

Far and wide we may be, from

Rottnest Island, to

Overseas.

May your travels take you distant places, as

Days turn to months

And we fill our calendar spaces.

No place is too far, and even though

I miss you so dearly,

Every day is an adventure to

Live life and see the world so clearly.

Together or apart, we are just

One past card away,

Lost in the night,

Under starry skies I stay.

Cast your gaze to the east and send your post card

Away, away, away,

So, your message takes flight and

Eventually I’ll pay, for a post card from

Venice, in the canals where I row, or

Even from Greece,

Near ancient ruins undertow,

And return your post card with a

Post card of my own,

As I travel the world too,

Round the globe, and all that is known.

Together, eventually we will be,

When the time is right, and we are both free.

Every extra hour or day that we wait,

Amounts to more stories and memories for us to

Recreate.

Even so, I think about where you are at times,

And wonder what your adventures are like,

Lonely, or really doing just fine.

Will you be excited to see me as well,

And hear my stories, as I excitedly tell.

You sent me a post card recently, I haven’t forgotten,

Saying you missed me in your journeys and

The world has gotten, seemingly smaller, if

Only just a little, as you travelled around,

Going through countries, air, sea and ground.

Every day that we travel, we grow a little more, but

Thinking about you makes my chest somewhat sore, so

Here and now, I’ll remember to convey,

Every day that we are apart,

Really, we are just one post card away.

Lucas closed the book, silent tears falling as he stood once more and navigated his way over to the bookcase above the chest of draws. He slid the book into place, the last free space on the shelf and flicked the light switch, and the room went dark leaving Lucas with nothing more than the sound of his own laboured breathing and a feeling of open yearning brought on by the words of a hidden message. Standing in the doorway for a moment longer than he intended he slowly closed the door, and he knew, there would be no more deliveries after today.