The Last Letter.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows
Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together
Brighter than a lucky penny
When you’re near the rain just disappears, dear
And I feel so fine
Just to know that you are mine

“Dear Victor;
I hope this letter finds you doing well. Sometimes I get busy in life and I forget to tell you how important you are to me. I wanted to take this time to tell you how much you mean to me.
Every time I hear that silly song by Leslie Gore ‘Sunshine Lollipops And Rainbows’, I remember when we were on our first date and it played on the radio. We both laughed and thought it was so stupid and sappy sounding. But as the night went on, I knew you were for me. I knew that those lyrics were talking to just us that night.
I do feel bad that we were never able to have children. I know you wanted a family. But we did everything possible to make that happen. I don’t know. All I can do is apologize that I couldn’t bear children for you. Sometimes I feel like less of a woman and wife for that. But I truly don’t know anything that I could have done different for you. I’ve tried to make up for that in other ways and do everything possible for you. Because I truly love you.

Vic remembered the squeal of the tires. He recalled the feel of the car being slammed and pushed. The smell of Lilly’s cologne still lingered in his mind, how beautiful she was. How elegant she was. How perfect she was.
He also remembered how if he had been paying more attention and not pulled out in front of the truck, Lilly would still be here in the living room sitting on the couch while he sat in his recliner reading a letter with a cat on his lap.

Do you remember how on Sundays I would make a big breakfast for you because the other 6 days, I hardly saw you due to your dedication to your job and patients? Remember the time we made love on the picnic table in the woods? Do you remember that Halloween that we dressed up as frogs and how the kids all laughed when they came to the door for candy. We just didn’t have the heart to dress up and scare children. It probably would have been different had we been able to have children of our own.

Yes, Victor Willis, you have made me the happiest and most blessed woman in the entire world. If something were to happen to me tomorrow, and I died, I’d die a happy woman. Because I would die knowing that I had been loved to the fullest extent possible by a good man. Your unending and unconditional love is the most that I could ever ask for in my life.  So I would surely die a happy woman. 

 I just wanted you to know that our love is the best love that ever was created. 

Love, Lilly

This letter was the most painful to read yet. It reminded Vic of the pure love that they had. None other was like it. He reread the letter over and over. He touched the paper to feel her flawless handwriting.
The fun and laughter they shared came back to him. His heart raced as he remembered that day on the picnic table that they made slow and beautiful love. She was so perfect in every way.

Reading and being reminded of the love that he didn’t have anymore was excruciating. He wasn’t over the loss from the first time he had to put her in the ground. That empty feeling he had when she died was there again now. He had recovered his life after a time, but this new gash in his soul was too much. It was deeper.

The losses of the love from his aunt Dot and Elliot had been tremendous in his life. And reading those letters did open up the pain again of the loss of their love for him.

But the loss of the love of his wife was an entirely different type of hole in his construction. And now that the damn Creole witch had summoned this curse upon him and he was reminded of the loss of his wife’s flawless and undying love, well it was simply more than he could cope with.

He clutched the letter to his chest and sobbed weak sobs now. All of his anguish over the past few weeks had drained him and this one finished draining his emotions. He was lost in his own world now.

Victor Willis, MD was no longer able to maneuver the mental complexities of the loss of the few people that had truly loved him.

Again, Larry watched as his best friend heavily sobbed and cried. But this time was different that the others. He could tell that his owner was suffering. He seemed weaker now. He seemed hopeless.

He could see the weight that he had lost over the past few weeks. Larry could see that Vic’s eyes were sunken in and hollow from not sleeping. Larry could see the most unusual state that the house was in. Nothing was put up. Dirty clothes lie strewn through the house. Food had soured in the sink.

Even his best friend had started to sour. It’d been days since Vic had taken a bath and Larry could smell his owner’s unusual scent now. Vic had always been a very clean and nice smelling man. Now his beard was grown out and he had the same clothes on that he had worn for days. This was most odd for Victor and this home.

Most odd, indeed.

Two days after receiving and opening this letter, the mailbox was full again.  Heather the mailwoman made her way up the front walk  with Vic’s letters bound in a rubber band. She had to do this more now for him it seemed. She knew he was getting older but this was different for him to let it happen this often. She might need to try to find a relative or friend or do something to help, she wondered. She, it appeared, was really his only connection to the outside world.  His car hadn’t moved in weeks. She noticed that his newspapers were lying in a pile by the door. The back of the house was dark and she could only see lights on in the living room. Something. Something wasn’t right about Victor Willis’ home or his recent lack of activity. 
She paused outside to consider her options. But she knew inside of herself that something was wrong.

Should she just knock on the door? That’d be stupid. If he could answer the door, he’d have gotten his mail in. Should she call the police? And report that someone didn’t pick up their mail or newspapers and she had a weird feeling?. That’d be more drama than she could imagine getting herself into. She could just leave his mail by the door, beside the pile of newspapers. But that’d be lazy and stupid. 
She couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that she had inside of herself that nothing good was going on anymore in that once-happy home of Victor and Lilly Willis.  

The weather was still funky; it was thick and weird. Winds blew from different directions. One direction seemed cold and then when you walked a few more feet the other direction seemed like a warm wind was blowing.
Those same windchimes that she looked forward to hearing in the spring winds now sounded haunted as they bangled together in the shifting winds. She couldn’t decide if they sounded like they were alerting her to a problem or warning her to put the mail down and run back and get in her mail truck and quickly drive away. 

Her decision was made for her.

As Heather stood there on the sidewalk, scared, shaking now and considering what to do, suddenly the albino cat with pink eyes jumped into the window in front of her. He didn’t meow. He didn’t really do anything but stare at her.  It was a stare that felt like how a long, cold, shiny knife blade would feel being plunged into your chest. His pink eyes weren’t just pink anymore, they were a glowing pink like there was a light behind them. Cold chills ran up her arms as her eyes locked with Larry’s eyes. Neither she or the cat moved. She was  entranced by the depth of the stare of the eyes of this animal who wouldn’t move from his post. She felt her eyes grow bigger as the time went on and she couldn’t move although she knew inside she should run from this place because something very evil was behind that front door. 

As she stood transfixed by the pink eyes in the large window, the white cat jumped down. And in a few seconds she saw the front door, seemingly by itself, slowly open in front of her as if to beckon her to come inside. 
She felt her feet move. She felt her knees bend. She felt her body moving forward but wasn’t sure why because she so desperately wanted to run away. She could now see the cat standing beside the open door as she moved closer. For some measure of comfort she clutched the mail bundle as if it were a teddy bear and she was watching a scary movie and someone said ‘have you checked the children?’ over the phone line. 
Standing at the glass storm door, with the wind swirling and the wind chimes clinking and her body shaking in fear, she could now see Vic. 

Rather, the first thing she noticed wasn’t Vic himself but was that she could smell Vic. The smell of feces and urine permeated the air that escaped the pungent house through the raised storm door screen in front of her.  

The gulf winds had picked up more steady now over the last few hours. As the ambulance pulled out of Vic’s driveway and into the the street, they had to drive around a couple of loose garbage cans rolling about in front of them.

Wind chimes that the couple had collected over the years together banged against each other on the back patio awning. What was supposed to be relaxing was now chaotic, irregular and frustrating in their attempts to relax. There was a complete disorder in the area of Victor Willis’ home.

Had you been standing outside, in the blowing rain and looking towards the front of his home, you would have been intrigued by the stark white cat sitting in the large front window. You would have felt sorry for that cat as it looked at every move that the ambulance attendants made while placing Vic’s stretcher in the unit. How it craned it’s neck to see them as they pulled out and turned right and drove towards the psych ward at the local hospital.

However, had you been standing on the inside of the house, you might have had a different perspective on how you felt about this animal.

Had you been closer to him, you would have seen the glowing pink light radiate out of the cat’s eyes.

And you would have seen the cat’s mouth move.

And if your hearing was good, you would have heard Larry
singing…

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows
Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together
Brighter than a lucky penny
When you’re near the rain just disappears, dear
And I feel so fine
Just to know that you are mine

Heed the gifts of a vengeful sòsyè

Thank you for reading and sharing Letters.

Be on the lookout for a Thanksgiving short story.

~Mark