The Unwritten Orbit

To you, pen not yet lifted,

Welcome to the Storm Post Office. This letter is on deckle-edged cream paper, with an oversized italic serif title so fine it looks like a star trail. On it are a dense, exquisite star-chart vignette, a slate-blue circular observation dial, handwriting in plum ink and a small brass paper clip. Several index labels are stuck along the margin. The orbit is not finished; what remains is left to you.

Emerson wrote of a circle: "The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger circles, and that without end." — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Circles (1841)

An orbit is made by traveling it. The first line you write is its starting point. Write slowly, and do not mind mistakes; the rain will blur the ink into a new circle.

Space left for you,

Storm Post Office

Undated · The Archive