Dear Madilyn,

Someday, today will be a distant memory. You will want to hug your younger self (your current self) to comfort her over all she is going through. You will walk down the street, with a cup of warm tea, your breath visible in the early morning light, smiling up a sunrise, and be grateful that times got easier again.

And then you will write a letter to yourself, with the full knowledge that while Fortune’s Wheel is ever-turning, you will carry yourself through it all with dignity, empathy, and courage, and that will make all the difference.

*****

PO Box 159 at the Brooksdale Post Office is a bit unusual. Every week, it receives letters from many different people from many different times in the future. Many times, the letters are well-wishes and advice from the loved ones of people of our time. Other times, there are dire warnings.

No one seems to know how or why these letters started coming to PO Box 159. They simply appear. The future these letters describe seems to be in constant flux; one day the year 2098 sounds like a dystopian hellscape, the next day a letter will appear describing a garden of Eden.

Emma Reilly, the owner of PO Box 159, shares the letters she receives through this blog (mostly) every Tuesday.