Postcards

            I found her sitting in a straight wooden chair, her wispy gray hair illuminated by sunlight from a grimy window. She was an unknown recluse in her third-floor apartment.
            “Come in,” she said with a worn voice, still gazing within her eyes at the wall behind me.
            The linoleum floor was covered with old postcards, each with the same scratchy writing but from all over the world.
            “He wrote again today,” she said. “From Paris. Isn’t it a beautiful picture? He’s coming home soon, I think he’s almost ready.”
            There must have been a thousand yellowing postcards in her apartment.