The Stamps That Traveled Farther Than Ever Before

Once upon a stamp — or rather, once upon a collector — there was someone who loved to travel. Not through airports or highways, but through small, colorful bits of paper that stuck to envelopes and soared across borders, carried by postal pigeons… or rather, very slow postal snails, depending on the day!

This collector’s name was Constantinos. He was neither a magician nor a pirate, just an ordinary friend of stamps. One day, while flipping through a magazine, his eyes landed on a small ad. A boy named Tommy Martin, paralyzed and confined to a hospital bed in New York, was asking for stamps.

At first, Constantinos hesitated. "Could it be a trap? What if it’s some evil mastermind trying to build an army of adhesive warriors?" But then he thought again.

“What if it’s real? What if a single stamp can bring joy to someone who can’t travel like I can?”

So, he carefully selected a few of his favorite stamps and sent them across oceans and clouds in an envelope that had no idea of the adventure awaiting it.

The letter began its journey from the small post office in his neighborhood. It passed through Athens, where a postman in a beret mistook it for a love letter and nearly sent it to Paris. Then a gust of wind snatched it from a mail sack and spun it in the air like a dancer. Eventually, a serious-looking man with thick glasses returned it to the correct route.

And so, after a series of accidental detours, the envelope landed in Tommy’s hands.

Weeks later — zap! A postal lightning bolt! — a new letter arrived from New York. It was decorated with stickers, tiny stars, and Constantinos’ address written… in his own handwriting?

“What’s going on here?” he wondered.

With bated breath (and slightly spilled tea from the excitement), he opened the letter. Inside, he found not only more stamps than he had sent but also a letter from Tommy. The boy’s handwriting danced like tipsy ants across the page — his hands didn’t always obey — but every word sparkled with joy.

Tommy wrote about his life: a dad who seemed like a superhero from a comic book, a mom who brought him ice cream even on the hardest days, and his many adventures with doctors, wires, and machines. But above all, he wrote about his beloved stamps — tiny paper passports to imagined worlds.

Their correspondence lasted two full years. Every letter was a window into a world no one else could quite see. Until one day, Tommy sent his most unusual letter yet.

He wrote that he was ready for his biggest journey — not by plane or boat, but with invisible wings. He wasn’t afraid. Somewhere above, he believed, a great embrace was waiting.

After that, no more letters came.

Constantinos kept Tommy’s stamps and letters like treasures. They weren’t rare because of their age or value, but because each one carried a piece of soul.

And now, whenever he looks at his collection, he smiles. Because he knows that somewhere — in a strange post office in the sky — Tommy is still sending letters. This time, with clouds.