His one joy was tracing his fingers over the tattered pages of an old comic-book. It was her favourite, and now it was all he knew; the stories and faces trapped in that same series of panels and bubbles. After years spent desperately searching for her, he realised he too was a trapped shell.

Lost in the big city, he had left his trail of crumbs; messages, scribbled anywhere he could leave them. He wrote on the sidewalk, a single brick on a wall, plastic bags, shopping cart handles, subways, benches, trash can lids, mailboxes, over old posters on telephone poles, even on a discarded soap box. The sentences would be cryptic, brief, but would touch the people who found them, to the point where they would remember to include it in their daily recounts over dinner.

None of them could have been her.

He looked at his rubber soles. They were ragged from walking for so long. His heart was the same, exhausted of hope. At the end of all his messages was the address of an abandoned house. He was captivated the one time he saw it, and often dreamt of living there since. Or at least dying in it, he thought, as he approached the house again. It had been awhile.

To his surprise (and slight disappointment), it wasn’t abandoned anymore. Now looking new, it was more gorgeous than ever. Yet the solitude he remembered was still there; no one seemed to be home.

His fingers itched for the mailbox. Maybe, just maybe, someone had replied, and the house’s new owner was kind enough to leave it there.

A few kind words from a few kind souls, and even gifts… but one thing truly projected; a postcard. It was as brief as a crumb he left behind, but said everything he ever wanted one to say, and just a little bit more.

His lit eyes looked up, and he saw the grown-up girl shedding a happy tear at the window of the beautiful, beautiful house.