What letters had once passed through their narrow slots? Perhaps there were letters of joy, hastily opened by trembling fingers, sharing news of promotions or celebrations. Or maybe some bore the marks of heartbreak, hastily stuffed in, sealing an end to love stories, silencing confessions once so urgent, now discarded like the boxes themselves. Did a lover, no longer patient with time and distance, write a letter filled with the unspoken sorrow of fading desire? The final stroke of a pen that broke two hearts.
Then there were the letters of war, announcements of conscription, solemn notices informing families that a father, brother, or son would never return. Imagine the trembling hands that reached for those envelopes, fingers cold with dread, knowing even before they opened it that a part of their world had been shattered. Perhaps, in one of those rusted boxes, there still lies a letter that was never retrieved, one last farewell from a loved one lost to the violence of Mussolini’s ambitions, swallowed by a conflict too vast for any human heart to comprehend.
And what of the letters that carried hope? Perhaps there was one that announced a voyage to a new world, an escape from the ruins of fascist Italy. What did the family inside those walls feel as they read it? Did they clutch the letter in disbelief, hearts racing at the thought of leaving everything familiar behind, risking everything for a future across the ocean that could bring either salvation or despair?Â
But these letterboxes no longer receive such messages, nor even junk mail. They are silent now, witnesses to a time when people knew the feel of a stamp beneath their thumb, that tiny square of adhesive that once connected distant places, distant lives. When they knew the quiet ritual of sealing an envelope with a kiss, imagining that somehow, that kiss might travel through cities and towns, across oceans and mountains, to reach the lips of a lover or friend far away. Now, the emoji—cold, manufactured—has replaced the kiss, the tears, the smile. A heart symbol sent with the tap of a finger does nothing but mock what was once sacred.Â
Progress, they call it. But progress has led us backward. The immediacy of our world has made us impatient and has made us lose the grace of waiting, the beauty of anticipation. We no longer linger over the page, our thoughts smudging the ink as we pause, wondering if we’ve said enough or too much. We no longer visit the mailbox with bated breath, hoping for a reply, the small thrill of discovery in that creaky lid. Instead, we scroll through screens, our hearts empty despite the flood of notifications, unaware that something precious has slipped through our fingers.
The rusted boxes mourn silently, witnesses to a time when words were written with care, when the distance was bridged not by instant messages but by letters that travelled slowly, carrying the weight of longing, love, and hope. Now they stand abandoned, crumbling, like the stories they once held, their rust the only testament to the passing of time and the fading of a deeper connection.
