The Wife
The letter seared itself into my hands. As if it was a red-hot poker that I was holding. Had Harold written to me just before the unthinkable? Was he dead? I daren't start reading just in case the words on the paper were some channel into his final thoughts. I didn't know how I was to comprehend the loss of my poor Harold. Such a man didn't deserve an ending such as this. A piece of paper and a severed foot. What was I to do?
The detective had been almost apologetic as she handed me the pieces of paper, soiled with the thin white powder that crime labs use as they dust for finger prints. She had had her head bowed, and I struggled to look her in the eye as she solemnly passed the folded sheaves to me. Her demeanour spoke volumes. I could tell that there was something wrong. But what? I did't know. I'm uncertain as to whether I was wanted to find out. Harold has been such a big part of my life, that life without him won't seem like life at all.
It turned out that the van I'd seen disappear around the corner, heading for the nearby main road, belonged to a simple parcel delivery company. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except that the poor driver had been killed, it seemed, not far from here. No one had seen anything, and the detective informed me that the chances that anyone would rememeber anything were slim. Likely, none. That's just how it is now days. I'd asked her the driver's name, but she was unable to provide me that information. Privacy and all that, you know.
The pieces of paper I clutched in my hands felt like lead. They weighed on my soul unbareably. Pulling me slowly into depths I dare not enter lest I be lost forever. To unfold them felt like defeat. Like I was conceeding that my Harold had succumbed to eternity. I ran a finger down the length of the pages, savouring the slight sting bought about by a tiny paper cut enduced by the sharp egdes of the epitome.
I hesitated for what was a slight, yet painfully, long moment. Drawing my finger further along the edge of the folded paper. A small globule of blood gathered on the side of my index finger, bright red, congealing almost as quickly as it was exposed to the cool dusk air. It made me feel good. Like controlling my blood helped me to control the contents of whatever was held within the pages I gripped in my hand.
The pages unfolded easily, unlike I had thought. The leaden weights in my hands made me think that it would have been more like prying rusted iron from rusted iron, but no. They were more plyable than that - just like paper should be. As the pages opened under my command, the familiar handwriting of my Harold filled my vision, and my heart surged. Filled with joy at the sight of his unique script, but then quickly plummeted at the realisation that the pages I held in my hand may well be the final words I ever read from him again.
The Detective
I left her, standing, holding the letter from her husband, looking shattered. Like the shell of what a person should look. She was absent-mindedly stroking the pages as I drove out of the small road that she called home. Standing still in the waning day. The light was slowly passing into darkness, just as she was about to pass into her own darkness. A darkness that would consume her, tear at the very fibres of her soul. Crush her.
Knowing what she was about to read broke my heart. It pulled at the farthest recesses of my psyche and made me actually feel. Feel something. I pondered, for the briefest of moments, turning around and going back to her house. Getting out of my car and walking directly up to her, drawing my weapon, and pulling the trigger as it was aimed directly at her brain. Ending her life, and thus, putting an end to the misery she was likely to experience in the very near future. But I couldn't do that. Society wouldn't allow me to end the suffering that was about to commence for her.
As I left her street, I pressed my foot harder on the accelerator. The car lurched under the sudden influx of fuel into it's system before the tyres bit into the asphalt, catapulting me forward, away from the woman holding the letter. I didn't want to be a part of her life anymore. But I knew that I would be returning soon. It would be inevitable after she read the letter. I cursed the human race; what they were capable of. The pain that they liked to bring upon each other. Silence filled my car, forcing me deeper into thoughts that I wasn't yet ready to explore. I pushed them aside, but found I was losing the battle. My mind proved too powerful, and I kept retuning to that letter and the revelations it contained. I reached to the centre console and pressed the button that would turn on the radio, then quickly mashed the volume button with the same finger, sending the sound of the station skyrocketing to the point where it was so loud that it almost became unbareable.
A song I didn't know from a station I had never listened to filled every recess of my head, chasing away the thoughts that were conspiring to overwhelm me. Had I have known the song, I might have even sung along, but for now, just being distrcted was enough. I allowed the unknown ballad to pull me away from reality, to take me on a journey away from where pain and suffering existed. It worked, and for a brief time, I forgot my surliness and that I hated everything.
The Letter
Every lie ever told began with a truth. It doesn't matter how deep the fabrication runs, or how dark it has become - it once began with the light of truth. Most lies are simple and dismissed immediately - bought about by the feeling of necessity - the need to protect, or to hide something or someone. Burning out before they have the chance to take. But every now and then, one takes - a flicker at first, but before long, the fuel that has been added mixes perfectly with the increased oxygen supply, giving birth to a raging infreno that consumes anything that gets in its way.
The letter beagn cryptically. I paused, seeking breath. Inhaling deeply, but feeling light-headed all the same. My world had crumbled the day my Harold had disapperaed, and it seemed that it all boiled down to the letter I gripped with vice-like force. But it didn't contain what I needed. Clarification. Explanation. Something that told me anything. Instead, it was filled with nonsensical musings. I didn't care for greater insight into lies and how they are formed. I wanted - needed - to know what had happened to my Harold. I continued to greedily devour the words on the page. Insatiably gormadising them like they were my last meal before being marched, serreptitusly down the corridor, to my exectioner.
That's how I felt, the day I was offered the promotion. Like the lies had taken hold. Like they had finally consumed me and were about to tear, from me, everything that I had ever held dear. Like you, my beloved wife. What had you done, that you were to pay for my sins? The promotion, on the surface, offered us further financial security. It gave us a sense of accomplishment - like the striving was worth something. Recognition does that. It will often provide one with a self-inflated sense of entitlement. But not me. Not this time. All this promotion did was complicate things. In fact, it took what was already complex, and made it even more so.
An uncontrollable shudder ran through me. I felt as though someone had just located my future grave and had danced a jig all over it, pausing only to mock me, before resuming their morbid gyrations. Still grasping the letter, I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, seeking what little comfort I could from the futile action. I felt better, momentarily, but then plunged back into the reality that was unfolding before my eyes. My Harold was alluding to something here, and it was so difficult to read. Yet I had to continue. I unwrapped my arms from around my torso, and dove back into the words, still longing for the clarification of what had happened to my Harold, but suddenly afraid of what I might find.
You see, the past few years have been difficult for me. I have done my best to shield you from them. At times, I was certain that I was not going to be able to. But I had been able to. Until that damn promotion. That had been the start of the end of it all. Why couldn't they have just left me alone. Why couldn't they...
The words came to an abrupt cassation as the page ended. I eagerly flipped it over to the next one, wanting to continue.
Blank!
I paused, momentarily unsure as to the reasons why I was not able to see anything on the paper. I turned the page over in my hand, fingerprint dust puffing off the paper as I did so, thinking that maybe it had been inadvertently flipped over, but still, nothing. My brow furrowed as I quickly rifled through the other sheets, only to find that the rest were the same as the second. Completely blank. I thought of the detective, and that it must've been a simple mistake. That she had accidentally swapped the pages of the letter with some blank ones, but the more I thought of this, the more absurd it becaome.
As I stood, pages in hand, becoming more agitated at the inconvenience that this caused, my bewilderment slowly gave way to anger. I was trembling with rage. Shaking the papers I held for a reason other than fear felt good. I couldn't believe that someone would be so careless. So heartless.
The sun had finished its decent below the horizon, and all that was left of the day was a soft orange glow, illuminating the tops of the neighbour's pine trees, painting the tips in an almost angelic manner. A movement below caught my attention. Almost imperceptable. I wouldn't have seen it, had I not been facing the trees at that exact moment. I thoguht, that in my fury, I had imagined it, but it happened again. Ever so slight - the lower branches rustling. My eyes had been briefly stung by the glow of the setting sun, so seeing properly was a little difficult, but I was certain the branches had moved.
I squinted to clear my eyes of the sun beams that danced across my night vison, and remembered something I'd once read. Dusk and dawn. The bleakest times of day - very difficult to see at either of these two times. Something to do with the position of the sun, making the world a greyish colour, and thus, extremely difficult to see. Armies would often coordinate attacks to coincide at these exact times because the enemy was most likely to not see advances easily. Many armies also practiced 'standing-to' over these timeframes, where soldiers would face out of their 'camp' and watch intently for attacks.
As the albility to see slowly returned, and the sun sank lower in the sky, the haze that was caused by both disappeared, and I froze. Standing in the shadows, at the base of one of the pine trees, almost engulfed in foilage, was a figure. A man, I thought. Dressed in black from head to toe, wearing black lace-up boots, and a black beanie. His face was squashed from what looked to be a clear mask, and I was unable to descern any features, other than that he was human. From a hand that rested against his hip, I saw the gun, casually trained in my direction. He was less than ten feet from where I had been standing, reading the letter, and I wondered how I had not heard him before. I wasn't militarily informed at all, but I had watched documentaries on different factions of the armed forces. The Special Foreces they called them. And I figured that I hadn't heard him, because he hadn't wanted me to hear him. Until now.
I remained focused on the man in the trees, and slowly took a step towards my door. I'm not sure now, what I was hoping to achive by that movement, but that step had been his catalyt. As lithe as a cat, he sprung from his hiding spot in the treeline and covered the distance between the two of us surprisingly quickly. I saw his gun hand come up, and then, down towards my face, and as the world went black the man raised a radio to his mouth, said something into it, and waited for a relpy. I wasn't sure, but as unconsciousness consumed me like the fiery lies written about in the letter, I thought that I had heard my Harold's voice crackle over the small device held by the intruder.
To be continued...
