Street sentences – for lonely people #fowc

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The job I used to do was to design a  project to bring communities together.

Often,in modern life, people don’t really know their neighbours and I wondered if there was a way to bring them together.

If there was a simple way I could make people smile.

The idea I had was so tantalizing that my tanticles were bouncing out all over the place.

In England  there are many streets with only a few houses in them.

My method : –

Write a single word on the back of a postcard.

Send a different word to each house in the street.

So that all the words if put together would form a sentence.

People would be compelled to meet their neighbours, as their desire to know what the sentence was would be so overwhelming.

I put a web address on the postcard, so the word could be entered online,and the sentence filled in.

The first sentence I sent was for a street with 12 houses.

Do you know your closest neighbours?Someone in this street is dying with loneliness.

The words filled in on the online response :

“Know”   “in”

I thought I’d get clever and copy some words of wisdom. What about a quote, I thought?

I found a nice street with 19 houses :

A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money. John ruskin

The online response :

“A”   “Money”

This isn’t working, I thought.

If I send any more postcards, I know one person who would be guaranteed to read it.

Our postman.

In England postmen and women walk round to each house individually on their route.  Then post any letters directly through the letterbox in the door. Giving them spare time, as they walk between the houses.

One of the perks of the job is reading the backs of other peoples postcards.

What would the postman enjoy reading? How could I make a difference to his life?

These are the words, one on each individual postcard, I sent to him :

I’m watching you. I know what you’re doing. Right Now. You’re posting letters.

There are so many postmen in England, delivering mail. Bills, postcards, birthday cards.

I decided to work through them all, sending my postcards to each postal route in the country.

I may not have succeeded with my original idea.

But , if I make each postman smile a little, perhaps I am making a difference.

Maybe some postmen and women will share the story to their local communities and maybe it will bring communities together.

I will never know.

Tim Willow

Thanks be to Fandango for his one word challenge. with the word tantalizing. although I am claiming credit for tanticles.

Can you predict everything anyone will ever say to you?