The Mailman at the End of the Hill and the Letters Without Addresses

At the end of the hill leading down to the riverside landing stood a small house with a brown-tiled roof. In front of the house was a faded tin mailbox, beside which hung an old leather bag that was always kept clean, even though no one had hired a mail carrier to pass through the neighborhood for years. The man who lived there was named Mr. Lam. He had once worked as a mail carrier, but he had retired many years earlier. Even so, every morning he still put on his light-blue shirt, slung the bag over his shoulder, and slowly walked all the way down the hill.

The people in the area had grown so accustomed to seeing him that no one asked where he was going anymore. They only knew that he often stopped in front of houses with tightly closed doors, gazed at the empty yards for a while, and then continued on his way. Some days, he sat beside the almond tree near the riverside landing until late afternoon. Other days, he returned with his bag bulging, as though he had just received a great many letters.

In fact, those letters had no addresses.

The Letters Without Recipients

Mr. Lam wrote his letters at night. He used blue ink on plain white, unlined paper. Each letter began with a simple greeting and ended with the sentence: “I hope that one day, this reaches you.” Afterward, he folded the letter and put it into an envelope, but he wrote neither the recipient’s name nor house number, and he did not affix a stamp.

Some letters were for his late father. Some were written to the daughter who had left after an argument. Some were addressed to a neighbor whom he had misunderstood for ten years. There were also letters whose intended recipient was unclear, telling only of a morning scented with pomelo blossoms, a cat basking in the sun on a doorstep, or the sound of children laughing on the other side of a fence.

He did not write expecting a reply. He wrote because some things became heavy if kept inside forever, yet saying them directly could hurt someone else. The unaddressed letters became his way of setting down his feelings, as gently as placing a leaf on the surface of the water.

One day, a little girl named An moved in with her grandmother in the house opposite. An was twelve years old, quiet, and always carried a yellow notebook. She often sat on the doorstep, watching Mr. Lam walk down the hill. At first, he merely nodded in greeting. Later, he stopped to ask what she was drawing. An replied that she was drawing the places she wanted to visit, even though she did not know when she might be able to go.

“Have you ever written a letter?” he asked.

“I don’t have anyone to write to.”

Mr. Lam did not tell her that a person could still write a letter to herself. He simply took a blank envelope from his bag, handed it to An, and said, “If one day you have something you want to say but don’t know who to say it to, just write it here.”

An Apology That Traveled Through the Years

A few weeks later, An saw Mr. Lam standing in front of the abandoned house at the top of the hill. Its iron gate was always locked, and more than half of its bougainvillea vine had dried up. He placed an envelope on the windowsill and stood still for a very long time. When he turned away, he saw An watching him.

“Does someone at this house receive letters, Grandpa?”

“Maybe not.”

“Then why do you still send them?”

Mr. Lam leaned on the handle of his umbrella and looked toward the river, glittering beneath the sunlight. “Because sometimes the person writing needs to apologize before the person listening is ready to listen. If I don’t send it today, it may be even harder to send tomorrow.”

Then he told An about Mr. Bach, who had once lived in that house. The two men had been friends since childhood. They had worked together at the post office, lived through seasons of rising waters, and witnessed the neighborhood change over the years. But because of a misunderstanding involving a lost letter, they had ended their friendship. Mr. Lam believed that Mr. Bach had deliberately kept his important letter. Mr. Bach, in turn, thought that Mr. Lam had blamed him to avoid responsibility.

Many years later, when the old post office renovated its storage room, people found the letter behind a wooden cabinet. It had never been sent because the recipient had moved away. The handwriting on the envelope belonged to a dying relative, but by then it was too late for either man to repair anything.

Mr. Bach had left the neighborhood before Mr. Lam had the chance to apologize. No one knew where he had gone. So, from then on, every year on the day his old friend left, Mr. Lam wrote a letter and placed it in front of the abandoned house. He knew that perhaps no one would ever read it. But the act reminded him that a friendship should not end simply because pride had stood between two people.

After listening, An asked no further questions. That evening, she opened her yellow notebook and wrote a letter. She wrote to her mother, who was working in a distant city. The letter said that she had grown accustomed to the new house, had learned to tie her own hair, and was no longer afraid of the sound of rain striking the corrugated metal roof. At the end of the letter, An wrote that she missed her mother but did not want her to worry.

She gave the letter to Mr. Lam the next morning.

“This one has an address,” An said. “Could you help me send it?”

Mr. Lam accepted the letter with both hands. He did not ask why An did not send it herself. He only said that he would take it to the district post office that afternoon. For the first time in many years, the old leather bag held a letter with a clearly identified recipient.

What Remains After Words Are Spoken

From that day on, An began walking all the way down the hill with Mr. Lam. She carried a few envelopes, while he carried the leather bag. The two of them did not always talk. On some mornings, they only listened to the sound of brooms sweeping yards, bicycles rolling along the road, and birds calling to one another in the canopy of trees.

Gradually, some people in the neighborhood learned about the unaddressed letters. An elderly woman asked him to help write a thank-you note to the son who had cared for her. A man brought in a half-written letter to his younger sister, then took it back because he did not yet have the courage. A young woman placed a slip of paper in the mailbox containing only four words: “I want to start over.”

Mr. Lam never asked whom the letters were for. Nor did he advise people that they had to forgive, forget, or make peace immediately. He simply helped them find a place to set down the things still lodged in their hearts. Sometimes, after finishing a letter, people realized they had become calm enough to speak directly. Sometimes, they sent the letter for real. And sometimes, they kept the letter as proof that they had once been honest with their feelings.

An gradually understood that writing a letter was not always about changing someone else. Often, writing was a way to see oneself more clearly. When angry words lay on paper, they suddenly lost some of their power. When longing was called by its proper name, it was no longer as vague as before. When an apology was written down, people began to realize that what they needed to mend was not merely a sentence, but perhaps the entire way they had treated someone else.

By the end of the rainy season, An’s mother returned. She carried the letter her daughter had sent and read it over and over during the bus ride. Mother and daughter did not speak right away about the days they had spent apart. They cooked dinner together, folded clothes together, and then sat on the porch listening to the rain. That night, An told her mother about Mr. Lam and the letters without addresses.

Her mother asked, “Does he ever receive any replies?”

An looked down at the hill, glowing beneath the yellow lamplight. “Perhaps he doesn’t need replies, Mom. Some people only need to know that they have said what needed to be said.”

The Hill Is Still There

Many years passed, and the hill was repaved with flat slabs of stone. Mr. Lam’s house still had the old mailbox. Only the strap of the leather bag had grown more worn, while his steps had become slower than before. An grew up, left the neighborhood to study, and then returned to work at a small library near the riverside landing.

From time to time, she still walked to the end of the hill with him. She carried new envelopes, while he carried his habit of stopping in front of silent doors. One afternoon, An asked him whether he planned to write a final letter.

Mr. Lam smiled and said that a mail carrier should not decide for himself when the journey would end. As long as there was still something in his heart that had not been said kindly, he would still have a reason to pick up a pen.

Then he took out an ivory-colored envelope. This time, the name and address on it were perfectly clear. The recipient was An.

She opened the letter after he had walked a few steps away. Inside was only a short passage: “Thank you for helping me remember that some letters do not need to travel to a distant place. They only need to bring a person closer to their own heart.”

An folded the letter and stood watching his shadow stretch across the slope. She did not run after him to say thank you. She knew that some words should be held for a while, so they could settle and become more sincere.

That afternoon, she returned to the library, took a sheet of white paper, and wrote her first letter to herself. She wrote about the things she had feared, the people who had hurt her, and the times she had stayed silent when she should have spoken up. At the end of the letter, she did not promise to forget everything. She only promised not to let old things completely determine how she would live in the days ahead.

At the end of the hill, Mr. Lam continued walking with the leather bag on his shoulder. Behind him were the houses, the rows of trees, and countless stories that had not yet been fully told. In this world, not every word finds the right person to hear it. But a word spoken with sincerity can still change the person who writes it. And sometimes, that is precisely where every return begins.