The Irony of Death

The Letter

I have come to terms with the fact that we all must die. Every one of us, and though we proliferate, to keep this mankind alive for generations to come, everyone must die. Not a very scary thought, if thought about in the proper sense. Dying in a sense deeply terrifies most. They think that to have died a peaceful death they must have to first live a peaceful and content life.

And once that is exactly what Matthew thought, he tried to go by his life trying to tick off his long bucket list, which he started writing when he was 6 years old. By 18 years old he had only checked off 3 things.

1. To eat a hundred lollies within the span of a week. (Reminder: he was 6 when writing this.)

2. To get a job by the age of 16

3. To buy a sedan convertible hardtop

How he had managed to tick off the last point is beyond him. As his $15 dollar an hour job had not done much for him financially. And he surely hated his job with a passion, working long hours in a convenient store where the customers always had something to say. Just yesterday, this one man commented on the paint chipping off of the walls. Matthew tried to remain calm when it came to handling customers but the man just had to comment on things out of his reach. Matthew could do nothing about the paint chipping off and he even tried to reason with the customer, but not taking no for an answer, he even went as far as yelling at him for not being helpful enough. He was only buying a pack of garbage bags.

Matthew had only wanted order in his life and if there was a change he'd go crazy. So when one afternoon, he went out in the scorching sun to look at his mail to see if he had gotten an acceptance letter from the 5 universities he had applied to. Skipping through the mail not for him he found one with his name on it. The letter had nothing but his name. He tore open the letter and found a hand written note. It read:

Dearest Matthew,

I am writing to you today after all these years apart to tell you that I truly am sorry for what happened, how I left you and moved away. But let me explain myself. I was clearly not happy and not in love with your mother. I chose probably the most idiotic way to leave but if you could see it through my eyes then maybe you'd understand. I know you're probably wanting to rip up this letter and not think about me ever again. But my son you are going into university and I have finally realized how much of your life I have missed. I missed your birthdays, I never got to drive you to school, I missed your first date and I missed seeing your first girlfriend. I was never here for you and I don't expect anything in return but if you could give me a day to be with you. And before you decline I want you to please take more than a few seconds to think about this. I am in town for 2 weeks and I really would just like to see you and make sure you're doing okay.

Please do think about this.

Love,

Dad.

The anger flared up within him as he tried remember his dad. There wasn't much to reminisce over, he was never here, he left 13 years ago and never came back and he thinks a letter could make up for 13 years of absence? He was clearly more stupid than Matthew  thought.

Matthew answered my ringing phone to an unfamiliar masculine voice. "Matthew Pearson?" absentmindedly touching his brows as he spoke "Yes" the voice spoke almost immediately "I'm special agent Montgomery and I need you to get down to the police station for an interrogation."

"An interrogation? What for?"

"Oh I'm sorry, we thought you would know. Your father has been murdered and we'd like to think within the span of these two weeks. Would you please come down so we can get the story from your point of view?"

***

Matthew sat down in front of special agent Mason Montgomery and his partner Lisa Beckett, repeatedly telling them that he hadn't seen his dad since he was 5 years old. That he clearly had no memory of him except for the fact that he left mum and him to go live a life where he wouldn't be tied down by a family.

Matthew decided to leave out the part about receiving a letter from him.

After 30 more minutes of telling them what he knew about his father, which was zilch, they finally let him leave. Driving back home seemed to calm him down the tiniest bit, all of this was so sudden.

Sitting in the car after parking in the driveway. Matthew took out the letter which he had been able to conceal from the agents, it was dated back to the 24th of October, checking his phone for the date, and it was the 7th of November, which means it is exactly 2 weeks from when he sent the letter. why had the letter taken so long to get to him?

Matthew did not know what to make of this. He looked for other clues but found none. Sighing in defeat he decided it'd be best to go inside and talk to mum and comfort her, he knew that despite the facade she put up, Amelia Pearson still loved his dad deeply and she held onto them bit of hope that he might return and this time be willing to start a family.

Though both Matthew and Amelia knew that his dad would not come back, but they never spoke about him to each other and now under horrible circumstances are they finally going to talk about who James Pearson really is.