Trying to sleep on that big room was an
impossible task. Not only the windows had cracks that let the cold wind of the
night in, the stone floor prevented anything to be very warm, even under the
covers. It was a dreadful place to stay for a night and John had to stay there
for, at least, a whole week. It had not been his choice to go on such a remote
place for a vacation. If it had been for him, he would have stayed in his cozy
tiny apartment, with his cat Michael.
But a letter had come on the mail telling him
to wait for its writer during that week. It didn’t specify a date and the only
thing he could learn out of it was that, whoever had wrote the letter, he or
she knew a lot about him and about his family. In three pages, he wrote things
that only a family member would know. It was very eerie but John had a sister
and a brother, so his first reaction was to think it was one of them, or maybe
even his parents, who would be most likely to actually written a letter in
paper.
After finishing the letter he emailed his
family and told them it was a very funny joke, especially with his birthday
approaching, but they all responded that same day telling him they had nothing
to do with a letter. They even joked that the world was too advanced for such
thing and that they hadn’t touched a piece of paper or a ballpoint pen in
years. And to be honest, John hadn’t done either of those things either in a
long time. Paper and pens where only in banks. So who was behind all of it?
He decided not to respond and just doing
nothing. Maybe it had been mailed to him by mistake or maybe it was just a very
bad joke. There are people in the world that don’t really have a good sense of
humor. Many have a deviant kind of humor that only a few people understand and
sometimes only them. But the letter was not even funny, on any level. Maybe it
was just a random thing, someone hoping to get a reaction out of the blue. It
was possible, John said to himself.
However, as the dates in the letter grew
closer, John received another letter. It had the same kind of calligraphy but
this time it was way shorter, more concise and had a certain air of urgency.
The person that had written knew that it was difficult to believed someone that
knew him so well was written but it clarified that it was a matter of life and
death. The letter begged for John to go to where it was indicated and wait
there for more information. He had to trust his instinct. And then the letter
finished with a simple but resonating phrase: “You have to come because you need
to close that chapter for good”.
That really scared John. He had never
discussed his past with anyone else. Not even his family knew everything that
had happened to him when he was younger, the things he did when he was out of
the house. John had always been the kind of child to stay behind, to have a
small amount of friends and prefer to play with toys or videogames at home
instead of going outside. But he did try to be another kind of person and it
was then when it all happened. The trip reminded him of everything.
He arrived to that sad hotel the day the week
indicated in the letter began. He had to ask for a special permit in his
office, permit that was strangely granted very fast. It was not very common for
him or anyone else there to get permission to leave for a whole week that
easily. The whole situation felt really strange, as if someone else had had
some sort of hand in the whole matter. It was a very scary situation but he
decided to ignore those facts and just do what he felt he had to do.
The hotel was the only one in that small town,
located about three hours away by road. As he had decided a long time ago not
to drive a car, he had to take the bus and that experience was worse than
anything because of the delays and all of the walking he had to do. It wasn’t
that he hated walking around or anything, more that he really didn’t wanted to
move more than necessary for whoever had lured him to that far away place. The
town was made of maybe twenty blocks, more or less.
The hotel felt more like a cemetery than
nothing else. The only difference was the fact that there was a roof over his
had. Aside from that, you could really feel the same kind of cold weather; the
same ripe smell all over and that very sad light that makes you feel unhappy about
being alive. The second day there, he woke up rather early. After a cold
shower, he decided to walk around town and hope he could find the person he was
looking for right then. Or should that be the other way around?
The cold wind was powerful, descending from a
mountain range that seemed to be really close. A woman in the grocery store
told him the temperature was always the same every single day of the year. No
summer days, even if the sunny was high up above them. The rays of sunlight
also felt cold in that part of the world. She also realized John was a visitor
and she recommended him to go to the nearby hills for some fresh air. She
assured him it was much less depressing than the small town. Hearing her say
that, gave him a little bit of hope, which felt out of place.
He went to the hills every single day, for the
next few days. On day six, he decided to leave the following morning very
early. All that time in such a small town was making him insane. He wanted to
hear noise again, to hear babies complaining and people being awful to each
other in the street. He wanted to hear the sound of cars and planes and trains
and he wanted to have his cat Michael next to him to warm up his feet before
going to bed. He didn’t belong there.
That day, he walked all over the place and
stayed in the hotel lobby for at least three hours after lunch in order for his
so-called host to come and tell him what it was that he knew, what the hell he
wanted to speak with him about. He waited and waited, hearing the sound of the
clock and the snoring of the man that tended the front desk. He wanted that
awful week to end and was furious to have been made to spend one of his legal
holiday weeks in such a sad a depressing town.
In the afternoon, he headed off to the hills
again. He did like to see the landscape, the mountain and a river far away.
Sometimes there were some sheep around and he loved to caress them. That day
they came again and he wanted to touch them one last time but they left
suddenly, as a figure wearing a large overcoat walked towards him. It was a
man, a very frail looking man, maybe the same age as he was. When he was
closer, John was able to see a scar above one of his eyebrows.
Then, he gasped and walked back a bit, scared
of this vision of the past. Even without saying a word, he knew who that person
was. As a teenager trying to get people to like him and having friends, John
had stolen the keys to one of his classmates’ parents’ car. It had been done on
a dare. He had to steal the keys and drive the car down the road. It was a
short trip, a crime without victim. Or so he thought. The man standing in front
of him was the kid he had run over that day, so many years ago.
He had always thought the kid was dead. He had
left them there, on the pavement, to die. He had turned around the car and left
it at that. He always thought the police would find him. But nothing ever
happened and John eventually learned not to think about that day.
And yet, there he was, the victim of his
attempts to be a normal kid. John wanted to be someone else and all he could
produce was a horrible accident. His victim had traced him down for a long time
and had been watching, waiting for his moment to come forward.
