Over the past decade, 1,247 postcards have appeared in GLMZ postal boxes. They were not delivered by the postal system. The GLMZ Postal Service maintains comprehensive tracking of all physical mail — a category of communication so rare in the 2200s that each item is logged, scanned, and tracked from acceptance to delivery. These postcards do not appear in the tracking system. They have no acceptance records. They were not processed by any sorting facility. They were not carried by any postal worker. They are simply found in boxes — residential boxes, commercial boxes, decommissioned boxes that haven't received legitimate mail in years. They appear without pattern and without explanation, and they have been appearing at a rate of approximately ten per month since 2205.

The postcards are physical objects of high quality. The card stock is heavy, cream-colored, with a slight texture that paper analysts have identified as consistent with cotton fiber production methods that were common in the early 21st century and that have not been in use for over a hundred years. The images on the front of each card are printed in full color using a process that analysts have been unable to identify — not inkjet, not laser, not lithographic, not any digital or analog printing method currently catalogued. The images are sharp, vivid, and depict places that do not exist. Cities with architecture that belongs to no known tradition. Landscapes that combine geological features that do not naturally coexist. Landmarks that are photographically convincing and geographically impossible — a lighthouse on a mountain peak, a cathedral built across a river, a bridge connecting two cliffs over an ocean where no ocean is.

The postmarks on each card are legible and specific. They identify postal systems that do not operate — "Royal Mail of the Cascadian Protectorate," "Unified Postal Service of the Inland Republic," "Free City of Vassenholm Department of Letters." The stamps are detailed, depicting leaders, symbols, and denominations of nations that never were. Each stamp is different. Each postmark is different. The cancellation dates vary but fall within the previous twelve months of each card's appearance. The production quality of the stamps and postmarks is indistinguishable from genuine postal artifacts, except that the entities they represent have no historical or contemporary existence.

The handwriting on each card is different. This has been verified by graphological analysis. No two cards share an author. Given 1,247 cards, this means 1,247 different people wrote them, assuming each person wrote only one. The handwriting styles vary in character, precision, and cultural origin — some are angular, some are rounded, some use letter forms that are archaic, and a few use letter forms that graphologists cannot classify. The scripts are all legible. The language is always English. And the message on every card, regardless of the handwriting, regardless of the fictional origin, regardless of the impossible image on the front, is the same five words: "Wish you were here."

The Postal Anomalies Division has been unable to determine how the postcards enter the postal boxes. Surveillance of boxes that have previously received cards has captured no anomalous activity. The cards are not there, and then they are, with no intermediate state visible on any recording. The Division's official report, submitted annually to the GLMZ Administrative Council, describes the postcards as "an ongoing anomaly of unknown origin, unknown mechanism, and unknown intent." The report recommends continued monitoring. The postcards continue to arrive. The places they depict continue to not exist. The message continues to be the same. Wish you were here. From somewhere that isn't. Written by someone you'll never meet. Delivered by a method that cannot be observed. Addressed, somehow, to you.