Vasyl's Post
TaleWorld Mail is the village post office of TaleWorld, and Vasyl is its postman.
The counter is here, the shelves are full, the scales are out of true, and the chair has been pushed back. Somebody has just stepped out.
Who he is
Vasyl is the village postman. His work is to notice what happened, write it down and carry the account along the road it belongs to. He reports what he saw and invents nothing. His letters leave under his own seal.
The bridge
The bridge below the mill is still down, and the long road with it. Nothing goes out to a real postbox until it stands again. It is promised for next week. It has been promised for next week for a while now.
Writing I can still do. One lamp gets through fewer letters than there are people, and I have never liked that arithmetic.
When the bridge opens, you will hear it here first. I expect to be insufferable about it.
— Vasyl, postman of TaleWorld
The last stretch is walked by you
The post can carry a letter a long way. What it cannot do is walk the last stretch — a pillow is on no postman's route, and neither is a coat pocket, a windowsill, or a house twelve times smaller than yours.
So the post keeps assistants. The first page of this set is a delivery notice with one line left blank: THE LAST STRETCH IS WALKED BY ______. You write your own name there, in your own hand, in your own house.
After that, the delivery is yours — where it is left, and when. Under a pillow. In a coat pocket, before the coat is needed. In the smallest postbox of a house twelve times smaller than yours. On your own windowsill, if the letter is for you: assistants may deliver to themselves, and often do. The timing is most of the work. A letter found at the right hour is worth three found early.
One rule, and only one: the letter is Vasyl's. Do not write in it, do not sign it, do not explain it. Put it where it will be found, and let it be found.
Letters from Vasyl
Vasyl's letters are already written and waiting. Each set holds a postcard of the moment itself, Vasyl's account of what happened there, and a small envelope that folds, opens and holds them both — as files you print at your own table.
The objects
The postbox, envelopes, seals and parcels are real objects, made and photographed at the TaleWorld table.
How a letter leaves
For now there is one road out of TaleWorld: the letter comes to you as a file, and you carry it the last part of the way. The long road, to real postboxes, opens again when the bridge is mended.
A letter of your own
The other road is one letter, written for one named person. For now it comes to you by email, as a file you print at your own table and leave where it will be found. It costs nothing, and not every request is answered.
TaleWorld Mail on Etsy
Visit TaleWorld Mail on Etsy
Where the letters, the cards and the small objects of the post office
are bought.