#59.11 | "The letter" [FICTION]
Teddy's dozen ~ Wind and snow ~ 33 ~ Jesus and Alexander the Great ~ The letter
Note: The following is a work of fiction and not necessarily representative of my own personal views. On January 8, I committed to writing a serialized novel, 500-words-a-day for the next thirty days. Every day, I sit down and write 500 divinely inspired words as the story unfolds in my head. Please don’t send me angry DMs or comments; I’m just a conduit for the Universe! Enjoy!! 🎉
XI. “The letter”
“It was a bad way to go,” says Gwen shaking her head, “a real tragedy. I mean, who gets cancer in their thirties? It’s unthinkable. Just utterly unthinkable.” She downs another shot and flips the glass upside down, taking extra care to put it neatly and evenly spaced next to the other eight already on the bar top. The Jefferson has a tradition that dates back to Teddy Roosevelt where if you can finish twelve shots in a single evening, they’ll give you the thirteenth on the house and let you keep the glass. Gwen has tried many times but has never quite gotten to a Teddy’s dozen.
The three friends sit for a moment in silence at the bar. The television’s still on and now a weatherman’s on air warning of a record snow storm that’s imminent, forecasted to hit DC in a few hours, shortly after midnight. The bar’s sparsely attended at this hour as it’s just a random Tuesday evening. Outside the night is cold and they hear the wind faintly howling, whipping away at naked trees. Maggie looks down at her hands, at her slender fingers.
“You’ve known Christian for a good bit now, haven’t you?” Jack asks Maggie. “From way back when?”
Maggie nods. “I’ve known Christian a long time now.”
“Do you think he’s currently alright?”
She looks from her hands up at Jack and then out the hotel windows into the black and windy night. Underneath yellow light from the street lamps, snow has begun to fall.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
They say 33 years of age is when wheat is separated from the chaff. Wheat is taken somewhere good, somewhere yonder. And the rest of us are left here to figure it out. Thirty-three is when they crucified Jesus and also when Alexander the Great died, of a sudden fever. When you turn 33, legend has it that's when the Simulation garbage collects and decides what to do with you. If you have a role to play, the game continues. If not, you're taken off the board.
Maggie turns 33 this year and is honestly unsure what it is exactly she’s doing with her life. In her blazer’s inner left breast pocket, she’s carried the letter for eighteen months now. On the literal morning she’d gathered all her courage and was going to finally tell Christian, that was the exact same morning they’d gotten news from the hospital about Juliana. The literal exact same morning. What were the chances? Maggie wasn’t one for woo woo superstition, but even she couldn’t deny the timing had been galactically cosmic. Maggie doesn't remember all the details of the evening’s remainder but when she wakes the next morning, she finds herself somehow up in her hotel room in bed under the covers, alone, with bright white sunlight filtering through the window. Her heels are off but otherwise she appears to have fallen asleep in the same leggings and clothing she’d been wearing last night, blazer and all. Against her chest, she feels the letter.
They say 33 years of age is when wheat is separated from the chaff. Wheat is taken somewhere good, somewhere yonder. And the rest of us are left here to figure it out.