The Dead Letter Room

Dear Ji-hye,

It’s been a while since I last wrote, but today I feel I must. Not because of any urgent reason—more a quiet insistence I can no longer ignore.

Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something here at the Central Post Office. At first, I thought it was a coincidence, some prank by a lone hand. But it lingers. Postcards keep appearing—strange ones, with no real recipients. Or rather, their recipients aren’t people, but something... intangible.

I’ve kept three of them aside. They were just there, as if waiting to be found.

The first was addressed to “Hope.” Handwritten, simple, with just one line:

"If you are anywhere, answer me—even if it’s only a tremble."

The second was for “Freedom”:

"I don’t know if you know me. But I am waiting for you, even if you are not allowed to come."

And the third—perhaps the tenderest—was to “The Light”:

"We have not forgotten you. We are only practicing to live blind."

At first, they came sporadically, scattered over weeks. But now… they are growing. A quiet trickle, suddenly gathering weight.

I don’t know if I’m imagining things, Ji-hye. Perhaps it’s nothing—just coincidence, like raindrops falling on the same spot by chance. But sometimes—especially late in the evening, when the light in the post office drapes low over the tables and everything is still—I believe: something has begun to speak. Not loudly, not in any voice you can hear. More like a pulse beneath the skin of the country. Something shapeless, stretching out, feeling its way. A murmur growing card by card, as if these small, solitary hands are trying to weave a net. One we are not yet allowed to see—but that has already begun to form.

It doesn’t frighten me, strangely. More… a kind of delicate shiver. As if something long-buried is learning to breathe again.

Stay careful. Stay watchful.

In solidarity,
So-young