Introduction

For many years, my father worked as an auditor for the Inter-Parcel Post Service,
back when it was still a thriving global courier company with fleets of steamships
delivering packages and correspondences from Tokyo to Dublin and anywhere in
between. He always bragged about how he got to travel around the world auditing
the company’s different branches and about all the clever systems he came up with
to ensure that every piece of mail reached its destination. But despite his best
efforts, Inter-Parcel Post eventually went out of business.
By that time he’d been promoted to chief of delivery operations and was moved to
their home office in Rotterdam, where he was given the final task of overseeing the
dissemination of any mail still in Inter-Parcel’s possession. He did his best to make
sure ever piece of mail found it’s way to its destination. But there was one box in
particular he was most invested in.
It contained a collection of unclaimed post cards found in one of the home office’s
PO boxes. They were sent from different locations from around the world with
beautiful illustrations, all addressed to “K”, and all signed, “Truly yours, Emi.”
I don’t know what became of the two or if they ever found each other again. But it’s
been my father’s greatest disappointment that he was never able to find this “K”,
despite poring through company ledgers, putting up flyers and whatever else he
could think of doing over the years.
So now that he’s gone, I’ve taken up the search in the only way I know how—by
reproducing the post cards and sharing them with the world, in hopes that one day
Emi’s adventures might finally reach K, wherever that may be.