Flash Fiction: Postcards from the edge

Today's flash fiction – Postcards by James C. Bassett – offers a glorious foray into a 'what if'  world of mystery that is just out of reach – or is it? James C. Bassett is an award-winning stone and wood sculptor who lives in Galway, Ireland and in the American Pacific Northwest. He is the co‑editor (with Stephen L. Antczak and Martin H. Greenberg) of the anthology Zombiesque (DAW Books, February 2011) and (also with Stephen L. Antczak) of the anthology Clockwork Fables (ROC, June 2013).
www.jamescbassett.com 


​Postcards
by James C. Bassett

I don’t know where they come from, the postcards, or who sends them. They arrive without stamp or postmark, without description or explanation, without a signature, with only “Wish you were here” written on the back. On the front, the pictures give no clue to their location: natural scenery, majestically beautiful, unspoiled, never so much as a building or a road or any sign of human interference to give any hint, nor do I recognize any of the features: the mountains, coastlines, forests, rivers, skies.

These scenes are always unlike anything I have ever seen, anyplace I have ever been. They might almost be of another world, or of a place that doesn’t exist at all. Even so, I feel drawn to them.
    
And the images themselves are somehow otherworldly as well. In the same way that old photographs were printed with colors too vivid, making them subtly but obviously unreal, something about these pictures is just too . . . something. Perhaps the colors are just ever-so-slightly off – or are the pictures somehow so preternaturally sharp as to be practically real? Just as old over-saturated postcards automatically look like they come from a different time, these postcards too convey a sense of anachronism, as if they come not from the past but somehow from the future.

I have a drawer full of them, these postcards. They arrive irregularly, without warning and always without explanation. I long ago gave up any hope of understanding this mystery. Will I ever find my way to these places? It seems unlikely.
    
Yet as I stare at the latest card to arrive, it occurs to me that “Wish you were here” may be not an expression of affection but an instruction – an exhortation.

If I wish hard enough. . . .