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A man wakes up one cold morning and hears a knock on the door. He lives alone and has few Friends that would visit him, at least none that would visit un invited. He gets up from his bed, groaning when his feet touch the cold tile floor in his small apartment. He looks in the eyehole of the door but only catches the shadow leaving the doorstep and the footprints it left behind. He is confused at first but remembers that he is due to receive a check. But as that answer seems so promising, he also remembers it's only around 5:30 and the mail man dosent run until around noon. Puzzled he opens the door, peaking out only to see what there is too see in his small doorway. A vase with a dead plant he regrets buying, the footprints leading off into the winter night, and a red velvet letter . He shivers as the cold hits him and he closes the door walking inside and setting it on his nightstand. it's early and he has work soon so he decides to get ready for the day.
"That will be 10.75 ma'am." He hands the middle aged lady a pack of baby blues cigarettes and strawberry chewing gum. She stares at him blankly reaching into her snow leopard fur purse and pulling out an hundred dollar bill handing it too him. "We don't have that kind of change this early.." she smiles and the silence of akwardness
enters like an unwanted guest at an party. The sound of the old heater warming the cold gas station the man works at being the only sound until her red lips split to retort to the mans statement. "Well, You can keep the change if you open the letter". He stares at her in an akward silence that even the ticking of the heater seemed to be stopped for. It was only broken by the doorbell dinging as another customer walks in. Before he can question her she has already placed the cigarettes in her purse and a stick of gum in her mouth. She was out the door before he could even realize it.
He sat in his car staring at the letter, he drove a partially rusted, almost undrivable Ford station wagon, it was a gift from his grandma and he hates that it's all he has left of her or else he'd buy a new car. His mind was trying to figure out who she was, her simple image flashing in his mind like a light being tossed in the dark. He examined the letter in his hands. It was perfectly folded at every corner, the most perfect envelope you could ever imagine. then placed his knife along the letters seal and cut it open, ruining the envelope. He grabbed the paper stored inside and began reading it, his eyes hungry for the knowledge it had.
The letter listed the names of his closest friends and relatives. His mother, his best friend his old roommate even his aunt he hasn't seen in months. the amount of Dept they had totalled up rounding up to around two hundred thousand dollars. He was dumbfounded. Who sent the letter? The thought bounced back and forth in his mind until he heard a small but loud knock on his window .
The officer looked miserable, Late 40s maybe and had eyes that had seen a thousand lifetimes. "You can't park here" he sounded alot younger. So much so it startled the man and the officer noticed smiling. "My apologies officer". The cop watched him turn his car around and drive into a parking lot. He stepped out of his car to finish reading the letter, he lit a cigarette and continue to read. it was very straightforward saying "You have depts, we can solve them. And on the end of the paper was a address he had seen before but couldn't remember where.
After work he was on the highway for what had seemed like hours, the city he lived in becoming nothing more than a light in his rear view mirror. He was reading his map figuring out where this place was, the address being so perfectly familiar. He pulled into a gas station and walked in. The cashier looked at him, he was younger than the man, somewhere in his early 20s but had grey hairs already. "Do you know where this address is?" He showed him the letter and and he smiled and said "it's just on your right further down the road."
He arrived to the building, it was well maintained but looked vacant. It had what appeared to be lights on from what he could see. He knocked on the red door, hands in his pockets twisting his cross that had once been his fathers. He remembers being in church and reading out the ten commandments, being met with applaud and praise for restating the rules. The door opened and there stood the lady from the gas station. He stared at her and she smiled and lead him upstairs, down hallways and into elevators, He thought it was very strange seeing as the building was only around 2 stories. Before he could ask where they were going they arrived to what seemed to be a office. He walked in and she closed the door.
He looked around the room, it was beautiful and full of luxery fancy items noticing awards and prizes, pictures of a man who seemed to have it all, money cars women. He Wondered who the man was, and how he got so rich while he was stuck Working graveyard wasting his only life. He thought to himself about how he'd kill to be that rich.
Just as he finished thinking that simple thought the door opened.
It was the man in the picture. He pointed a revolver at him firing into his chest splattering blood onto the paintings of the fancy cars and piles of money. As the man fell back in a cloud of blood. The simple words of why left his lips. the man from the paintings said simply, "I would too." Then stepped over him walking to his perfec desk and writing a letter. He sticks said letter into a perfectly folded envelope and sends it into a slot. He turns on a TV above the corpse of the man and his picture is on the news as he's ranked the richest man in the world.
