Was it 30th St, or 30th Ave?

The letters, sent every week like clockwork, were penned in thoughtful calligraphy. The ink told stories of adventure and triumph, of soul crushing tragedy and defeat. The words painted mountain valleys and urban landscape in beautiful poetry. The author, a young man, would inquire what the recipient thought about this or that, what was happening in her part of the world. He wrote what was on his mind, and what he had learned. It was an attempt to give her things, to help her with anything he could, to work with her, to grow together and learn together, mutually.

That man carried the letter--sealed in the thin, paper envelope--down the sidewalk. He passed under cherry trees in their first round of blossoms, a promise of freedom from the cold, overcast and misty weather. Warm, sunny, spring days were soon to come, when the cherry blossoms would again rise up and rain down from the trees. The man walked over the fallen blossoms with a subtle bounce in his step. He was later than normal that day.

He reached the blue mail box and found the mail carrier already there, pulling the previous day's letters out, to be shipped to their respective locations. The mailman was middle-aged with thick skin, and moved with a dulled quickness.
"Can you add this to the pile?" the man held out the letter.
The mailman grabbed it, glanced at the address neatly penned in calligraphy, and paused. "So you're the one sending these letters." He looked at the man. "She doesn't live at that address anymore." The mailman didn't notice the emptiness that descended from the brow of the man. "She left no forwarding address, and with no return address on these letters, we can only toss them in the trash." He held the letter back out to the man.

The man stood there, frozen, as a breeze blew across his face. He stared through the letter and past the mailman. The few seconds expanded into an eternity. He took a few steps back from the letter, clumsily turned, and walked off briskly and rigidly. His foot clipped a part of the sidewalk uprooted by a nearby tree, he caught himself, and kept going.

Two weeks later he was again walking down the sidewalk, letter in hand, as if he knew nothing better. At the mailbox, he habitually glanced at the letter to make sure it was addressed correctly: It now had one name, carefully and neatly penned, and one stamp: no address, nothing else. He heard the paper envelope slide down against the metal of the box, and the crash of it into the pile of letters within. "Next time, maybe I won't use a stamp," he thought to himself. He turned, and walked down the sidewalk with a bounce in his step.