THE UNSEEN INDEXOpening the Archive

The Unsent

Sorry about the delay

A postwoman who delivers letters that were written and never sent. They arrive years later, in the senders' own hands, usually after the senders have gone.

Code
VN-040
Kind
apparition
Where it is met
transit
Scale
human
Leaves you with
guilt

What it looks like, and what it does

A woman in an old post-office cap with a canvas bag at her hip, full of unstamped envelopes addressed in hands you almost know. Her bicycle leans on a gate with its wheels still turning.

Cycles at dusk. Walks the last fifty metres. Waits at the door.

What is known

She delivers on days when no post is due. The envelopes carry no stamp, and are warm. Each is addressed in the sender's hand, and a draft among the sender's papers confirms it as something they never mailed.

She delivers to the door and waits until the envelope is opened. She does not speak, except to say, once, “Sorry about the delay.”

What it can do

  • Delivers letters that were written and never sent
  • Finds any address, in any year

Where it stops

  • Cannot deliver a letter that has been sent
  • Will not deliver to someone who has already been told what it says

An encounter

Novak's brother had died in March. In June a postwoman handed him an envelope in his brother's hand. It was a letter of two lines, apologising for something Novak had not known was owed. He wrote back, and put the reply into the post box. It was returned, marked, in his own writing, “Not known at this address.”

Pavel Novak, retired teacher, Number 7, Brook Row, A Sunday, 17:30

What is established, and what is only said

  • established: Sixty-eight delivered letters have been matched to unsent drafts in senders' papers.
  • rumor: That some letters she carries have not yet been written.
  • interpretation: She may not be late. She may be exactly as late as the writer needed.

Still unresolved

Her bag has never been seen empty. The oldest envelope in it is dated before the postal service existed.

Where it has been recorded

  • Brook Row (confirmed) — Recorded by Pavel Novak, retired teacher.

Stories about it

  • Sorry About the Delay (Grotesque encounter, 4 min) — A letter arrives at the Ferry Road night office in a hand that died two years ago, and the woman it is addressed to has never dared to read the draft in her drawer.

Connected entities