A Sad Man's Tale

It couldn't get any worse. My soul was ripped to pieces and the remnants went with my poor family's. My heart didn't seem to be beating, therefore my mind didn't function correctly. So... why live?

I am a sixty year old man.  My early life has been great, but it's the most recent time that is the most dreadful.  That dreadful time is what you are about to read.

It all started with my anniversary.  It was me and my wife's seventeenth, so we decided, after our last ten, uneventful anniversaries, we'd do something special that year.  We sent the kids to my mother's house.  My parents were divorced.  My mother was sort of loony, but we knew that if anything bad happened she would take charge and be responsible.

My children were the best thing that ever happened to me.  I loved all three of them to death. Gary was the eldest, fifteen years old. Julia was thirteen, and Henry was ten. Gary was probably the smartest fifteen year old in the city; we all knew he would do great things someday.  Top of the class three years of his schooling.  Julia was just gorgeous. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, not to mention polite.  She was oh so ladylike and pretty, but she was still very humble.  And poor Henry had the biggest heart anyone could imagine.  He was so thoughtful, generous, purely caring and loyal.  My wife and I couldn't care for them any more than we did.  Except for that one night.  The cursed anniversary.  We shouldn't have let them stay at my mother's house so late at night.  Whenever we leave the four by themselves we make sure my mother has no reason to worry.  We leave them sandwiches and have them watch television.  We would have my dad watch over my three little angels, but he lives out of town.

My wife, Julianna (we named my daughter after my wife, only a shorter version) and I went to a very nice restaurant to just eat and visit alone for once.  Without worrying about the children.  Anyway, Gary was fifteen, if anything went wrong he'd know what to do.  Same goes for Julia, who is thirteen.

But we should have worried.  We should have taken them do my dad's or maybe even just canceled our special plans and let this year's celebration pass like the last ten.  Because while my mother was trying her best to cook dinner, a towel was set on fire.  One measly little towel.

I won't go father into it.  You can guess was happened.  You get the idea.

It spread to the living room where it reached my beloved darlings.  And they engulfed in the fire that killed not only them, but my precious mother as well.

Four people died that night.  Me and Julianna wished we would have died, too.  We couldn't live with the pain, the guilt.  We might as well have died with our kids.  We lived for thirteen years, scarred by the horrible memory.

But it didn't end there.  Not for me.  One day, on the very same one, I was informed that my father had died yesterday, and that Julianna had cancer.  My precious soul mate and my loving, caring father, who raised me to be who I was then.  Though, Julianna still had a chance to live.  We tried many drugs, many medicines.  She had treatments and surgeries.  But it was just money going to waste, because on our thirty-first anniversary, my wife died in a hospital.

It couldn't get any worse.  My soul was ripped to pieces and the remnants went with my poor family's.  My heart didn't seem to be beating, therefore my mind didn't function correctly.  Living didn't make sense anymore.  I could join my family in heaven right then.  So that's what I decided to do.

I told myself, "Get one more night's sleep.  Freshen up in the morning, then you can kill yourself."

So I impatiently laid down in my bed and fell into a deep sleep.

When I woke in the morning, I wasn't the same.  I didn't have ideas of suicide, but ideas of traveling.  I had a purpose to fulfill, and I had to go to Quincy, Illinois to do it.  Anyway, Julianna's sister, Jewel, lived in Illinois. I needed to tell her that her sister had died.  So I took all of my savings and rode, on a plane, to Illinois.

I told Jewel what happened.  She was absolutely devastated.  She and my wife had the best relationship as kids.  I comforted Jewel until she said I should go do what I told her about.  But I had to do my deed in the morning, at eight o'clock, so I spent the night at Jewel's house.

I decided, since the person I was looking for lived in Durango, Colorado, I'd go live in a nice little town nearby, just to keep an eye on this person.  I went to the train station that morning and waited for this person.  She'd be on the train, and we were both going to Denver, then we'd have to split up to go to our new houses.

I didn't realize why it was so important that I meet this person.  All I knew was that if I saw them, my life would be much more... lived.  As if this was my whole purpose.  Something inside me told me it was.

Then, right before eight o'clock, a very skinny, tall, blonde girl with striking blue eyes walked in the train car.  Then those breathtaking eyes met mine.

I fulfilled my purpose.

Author's Note

This is just a back-story of a man in the novel I'm writing. The skinny blonde girl is Zy, the main character. I'm still working on the book. First chapter is almost done. Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave comments!

Reviews

[strangebrain]

this is intriguing! Am most definitely going to look into this story you're writing.

[C.A. Lucas]

Thank you very much :)

[Soul Fire]

This is awesome!

[C.A. Lucas]

thank you very much!!