Optimistically Cynical: A Short Story Compilation- 1

KEEPER OF MEMORIES

TORN LETTER

Hello, I didn't see you come in. Won't you please have a seat? If you will, allow me a moment to put these away. Oops I dropped one. Be a dear and pick it up for me, wont you? Thank you. 

Isn't it lovely? So precious. Do you know what it is? It's a memory shielded by a glass sphere and exemplified by an object. Look inside and you can see it. Isn't it wonderful? It's a torn letter. 

I'll tell you what, just sit down and I'll tell you all about it. Comfortable? Then I'll begin. Just look inside the glass sphere and the images will become clear, as I narrate the tale.

Do you see the street below? It's a nice street, home to many families. All of them normal, but even normal people have secrets, though some have more than others. 

Do you see that woman walking towards her door? That's Mary, Mary Watterson, but that's not her real name. At least Mary isn't, she married into the Watterson name, so that does belong to her. Her real name is a secret even to her most intimate friends, even to her husband. It's a secret she's had to bury, but it's about to come to light.

She is near her door now, ready to go inside. But look, someone's approaching her. It's a man, a stranger to this quiet street. She sees the man, but does not recognize him. He hands her a letter and walks away. Now she is alone staring at the envelope in her hand. 

Mary is reluctant to open the letter as it feels so strange, as though it belongs to her, but there is no name. She breaks the seal and feels a sensation deep within her being. She removes the small, torn paper inside. 

It says, "Dear Tabitha,"

Mary nearly drops the letter. Tabitha is her real name. She looks for the stranger and sees him round the corner of her front lawn. Another envelope slips away and plants itself in a nearby shrub. 

Mary hurries down the walk, all the while her gaze is fixed upon the protruding object, which she fetches before looking up. The man is gone. She opens the envelope.  

Another piece of the same letter. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to see your birth, I only wish I could have been. My reasons however are selfish and to divulge them to you now would only cause you greater pain. Just know that I was a foolish boy who had a lot of growing to do."

Mary stands still a moment. This piece didn't reveal anything she doesn't know, but she still feels it importance. 

Mary looks up and sees the man. He's walking away from her house out into the night. She hurries after him and sees another letter fall. It falls on the grass, but Mary ignores it. She's still chasing the man when she steps foot into the street. 

A horn blares as she's blinded by the headlights of a car, it screeches to a halt just in front of her. Mary recovers from the momentary blindness, but the man is gone. She steps back and allows the irate driver through. 

Mary returns to the discarded letter. 

She opens it, another part of the same letter. "I was sorry to hear about your mother's death, that is your birth mother. You never knew her and I, only a little bit better. Wanda was a special woman, but I was too immature to see that."

Another of Mary's secrets had been revealed. Wanda was indeed her birth mother, at the age of sixteen she became pregnant. The details are not clear as to why, but she gave up little Tabitha as an orphan.

Mary looks up, she can see the man just as he crests a hill and is gone. Again, a letter flits away, taken by the wind. It lands a few feet away. Mary hurries after it, this time wary of an approaching car.