The Eleventh Stamp

For the first time in weeks, nothing needed packing.

Floki was home. His bowl stood in its usual place. His favourite patch of floor still caught the afternoon sun. The neighbour's cat was still behaving as if it owned the street.

Some things, apparently, did not change.

He left his passport beside his bed. Ten places. Ten stamps. A little sand in the spine and one corner that smelled faintly of Singapore.

Then he curled up and slept.

In the morning, the passport was open.

Floki was fairly sure he had closed it. He was also fairly sure passports did not open themselves. He checked beneath his bed, just in case.

On a page that had been blank the night before, there was an eleventh stamp.

No country. No city. Just a small pawprint inside a circle. Beneath it, where the date should have been, was a single word.

TOMORROW.

Floki looked at the door. Then at the passport. Then, as a sensible precaution, he checked that his snacks were still there.

They were. Whatever this was, it had some manners.

A red corner showed beneath the passport.

Of course.

The postcard was waiting there, as familiar as ever. On the front were the words he had found in ten different places:

“The world is only the beginning.”

But this time, there was something on the back.

“You've seen the world. Now look closer.”

Floki carried the card to the window. Outside, the same gate leaned at the same angle. The same trees moved in the morning breeze.

Then he noticed something he had walked past a hundred times.

On the old gatepost, almost hidden beneath the ivy, was a tiny circle. Inside it: a pawprint.

Floki set down the postcard.

He would take the long way round today.

Floki had no idea where the eleventh stamp came from. But someone had left room for a twelfth.