In the darkest of nights - when all the world closed its eyes and no one was there to see, he let himself mourn for the life he never had the chance to experience. Upon the worn-out couch, between mountains of books that detailed grand adventures – he found himself with tears in his eyes and with shaking hands. In the darkest of nights…he realised the truth, death was coming, and there would be no mark of his upon the earth.
London had been his home for what felt like an eternity, and before now he had felt comfortable in its cold embrace – but something changed. From its place on the mantle his clock struck three and in that second, he came to understand that he was vanishing into the shadows into anonymity. He had to transform from this slowly deteriorating shell of a man…or risk becoming just another nameless grave that no one tended anymore.
“Right,” his eyes removed themselves from the clock and instead turned to the letter in his lap. It was one of the hundreds he had gathered over the years, and normally they made him feel lighter, but not today; no, today the letter filled him with purpose and caused his heart to race inside his chest.
Everyone reached a point in their life when they made a choice that would drastically alter their perception of the world. Most made that choice when they were young, and some even had the chose thrust upon them by those around them. For him, at the age of fifty, it was time to make that chose. “I need some wine..” he did not need to make it sober.
My dearest Alexandrea,
I write this letter with a heavy heart. Over the years I have come to see you as a surrogate daughter and while that has given this old man great comfort, it is no longer enough. There is little hope that I shall ever have a family of my own, and while that is a shame, what I find truly distressing is that I shall have no one to gift my shop to.
With every day I grow ever closer to the hands of death, even now as I write this letter, I feel it. My fingers ache from holding the pen, and my eyes are failing me. You are young, so I do not expect you to understand my melancholy, but I hope that you can find some way to understand the decision I have made.
You are my only family at this point. So, after great thought, I have decided to sell my shop here in London and move closer to you. I want to spend my final years by your side. I am aware this may be a shock to you, after all, I am just your fathers’ old friend, but still…I wish to be closer to the person who brings sunshine into my life. Please accept this old man’s wish to no longer be alone in the world, allow me to find a measure of comfort in your company.
By the time this letter reaches your hand I will have already be onboard a plane and heading towards you. I do not expect to see you straight away, but I do hope that you will come and find me – the address I will be staying at is:
Hotel West
14, 12 Gullsbourgh
Harper Rock
Canada
14, 12 Gullsbourgh
Harper Rock
Canada
I shall be staying there until such time as I am able to find a premise for my shop and I do hope to have the pleasure of your company.
Yours faithfully,
With a flick of his fountain pen he signed his name at the bottom of the letter, he then sealed it in an envelope ready to be sent off first thing the next morning.
_______________
Harper Rock – June 2019It had taken him only a week to have his affairs in London dealt with, and then he had hopped onto a plane.
Harper Rock was nothing like what he had thought it would be. It was still lonely, though that could be a symptom of his only having just arrived, it had a life to it that London had lost. Here, in this city, he felt able to picture a future, all he had to do was allow himself the chance to find his peace.
The first three days of after his arrival had been filled with settling into the hotel and scouting out locations for his shop. There had been no time to explore or contact Alexandrea – there had barely been enough time for him to shower in the mornings (not that he would have ever stepped foot outside his room without looking his very best), but eventually he fell into his normal pattern of behavior and found a schedule that worked perfectly for his strange little quirks. He got used to the way the city behaved.
During the day he would get up at 5 am and take a shower, he would have breakfast for 6:30, and then the rest of his day was filled with looking for a building. At night he would sit by the window and look out over the crowd until finally succumbing to sleep for around midnight. It was all very rinse and repeat…except today.
He had risen as he always did – at 5am – and realised that he had come all this way to spend more time with his dear friends daughter…but as yet he had not even had the common decency to phone her to let her know he had arrived, in fact, his phone had been switched off for the last god knows how many weeks..
“Oh, bugger…she is going to murder me..”
With fear, he dug out his phone and switched it on in order to text the woman. He hoped that she would be able to find it in her heart to forgive his oversight.
From: Benjamin Michael Ellis
To: Alexandrea
Hello, my dear. Sorry to message you so early in the morning – just thought I would let you know that I have arrived safe and sound in Harper Rock. If you are free this evening, I would be delighted to share a small supper with you.
Best regards,
Benjamin Ellis.[/font]