the postcard

I heard on the news one of those stories about the long overdue arrival of some piece of mail. This one was a postcard that arrived sixty-two years late. It was sent by a young army private to his young and likely chaste fiancee.

The couple was pictured in the news clip as they were then - young, earnest, handsome (both the man and the woman) and now currently holding the actual postcard, the content of which was inconsequential but full of promise about their life together when he returned.

Their current picture looked like they'd blossomed into two old people, cranky, unmotivated, unsatisfied and worst of all, resigned. The man had a look on his face that seemed to say, "What the hell was I thinking?"