To Whom It May Concern: by M.J. Garrett (books to get back into reading .TXT) 📕

seemed to fill her little body. She stretches her arms out as wide as she could and then pulls her arms back until her back pops. She lets out a breath of relief. Tilting her head from one side to the other, the sound of the popping and cracking bones and joints fill the room.

The small, little, innocent child looks at the two shadowed figures in the corner of the room and smiles. With her index finger extended, she softly places it over her lips and quietly demands silence. The child’s eyes are numb, calm, and possessed by power. She walks over to the door and into the hallway; closing the door behind her.

Carla stands there silent as Nate leans up against the wall and lights a cigarette. He’s comfortable here. His nonchalant reaction screams, “I’ve been here before.” Carla’s face begins to sweat and her eyes rapidly move back and forth from confusion and exhaustion. Standing there, still, quiet, and frozen; the door creeks open and Carla, dressed in her pajama pants and white shirt, walks through the door. She walks up and stands face to face with this mirror image. Her hand lifts up to reveal the heavy smoking pistol. She looks at her face and each version moves hair from her eyes and places it behind her ear. Both Carla and her reflection look at each other. Dropping the pistol to the floor with a silent thud that sent chills and vibrations from her feet and up her legs, they quickly buries their face in their hands, sobbing from the unwanted emotional overload.

Flashing back to reality, her skin burns. The black of the new ink fills her sore right rib cage. Standing there, in front of her mirror and sink, she glances at her toothpaste stained toothbrush and seashell décor. She looks at herself and examines the tattoo. Unreadable, she walks out into the hallway and makes her way into the living room, and sitting on the couch, the man in the suit. Nate, with his legs crossed knee over knee, looks at her. Smiling, he says, “I forgot how funny television was” and takes a bite of a granola bar that he pulled from a box on top of the fridge.

“What time is it?” she asked.
Lifting the cuff of his suit coat, he glances back to Carla, “It is 7:50 a.m. Why? Are you okay?”
“I’m late for work.”
“Work?” he questioned.

Carla quickly walks to the bathroom and dresses herself in the work clothes sitting on top of dirty laundry. She glances at herself in the mirror and whispers, “What the fuck just happened?” She takes a deep breath and walks toward the door. Glancing at the living room, she sees that Nate is no longer there.

To Whom It May Concern:
I think I just killed someone…and I liked it.

She opens the door and sees her neighbor, her new mentor, her new crush, her new Savior walking to his car. Everything about him is perfect. His suit is pressed and pristine, his eyes covered by sunglasses, his car clean and sleek. Nothing is out of place. He gets inside and backs out of his driveway and makes his way down the street; just as he has done every day that she has noticed.

Her new secret, her new look on things, her new vision and attention to the smallest details, her new secret life. Is it real, she wondered? Is it possible? She started her car and headed to work.


CHAPTER 17

Tom, leaning against the counter with his mouth full of chili covered fries, looks up at the TV mounted above the checkout counter. Walking in, Carla sees her fat, disgusting, slob of a worthless friend engaged in a blink-less trance of stuffing his mouth and watching the TV.

Without looking at her, he waves his hand at her, beckoning her to join him. Gluttony is a sin, right? She tries to justify this feeling of disgust that begins to warm her stomach. “Carla, check this crazy shit out!” Carla joins him by the television. The field reporter, holding a finger to his ear and walking backwards toward police cars and ambulances, screamed into the microphone. He’s saying something about a missing little girl, a dead grandfather, and a hysterical mother.
Gluttony is a deadly sin; she remembered it from church camp.
Flashing back to the studio news, a pretty lady wearing a suit coat and low cut silk blouse squints her eyes and shuffles papers as she listens and watches the reporter with his finger against his ear.

The man sitting beside her, shakes his head in disgust and quickly dismisses the over dramatic reporter and promises to have “more to come.” The man, the anchor, black and dressed in a blue pinstriped suit with a bright blue tie, shuffles his papers and smile into the camera. “In other news….”

Look at them, she thought to herself, “Look at his smug unconcerned and disconnected smile. Being an asshole is a sin right?” She thought about the way, this news anchor on TV sat there in front of the camera hiding his secrets behind his stupid smile. Child porn, unfaithful, secret prescription drug abuser. He sits in church every Sunday, four pews in front of Mrs. Galloway and Mrs. Johnson. He smiles the same way when he shakes hands with the preacher. Fake and disconnected.

His wife smiles while sitting beside him and their 3 children. She smiles to hide her secrets, her hatred, her nonexistence, her secret crush on the man who sits 2 rows over. Her crush is holding a black bible filled with notes from sermons and yellow sticky pad notes of personal thoughts and well thought out personal interpretations. The man has no wife or kids. He’s a man who she sees every Sunday morning, clapping and singing to the gospel hymns, soaking up every word from the charismatic preacher.

Mr. Franklin is our anchor, our giver of news, our information provider, and our sharp dressed facade of a godly man. He puts his hand on the knee of his lovely wife, smiling ever so big, just like he was on camera sitting beside the pretty woman squinting and shuffling papers. Smiling like he does when he reminds the pretty woman that her job could be in jeopardy if she didn’t perform certain tasks for him.

He’s smiling like he owns the camera; like he owns the news; like he owns her. Smiling like he has for the past 20 years sitting behind that desk. I know adultery is a sin…what about arrogance? Smiling like he did for the 10 or 11 other girls that didn’t make it through the rigors of news casting, forecasting weather, or retrieving coffee. Everyone had secrets. No one had secrets.

Joseph Banks, the reporter with his finger against his ear, he sits in front pew. He sits there with his leg bouncing up and down. Shouting various versions of “Amen” and “Hallelujah”, he sits there engaged, interacting with the preacher and his secret porn problem. Following the preacher with his head and eyes; catching spit from the mouth of this crowned sinless messiah and wiping it off with his monogrammed handkerchief. False prophet? Now that has to be a sin, right?

Carla wonders if the world knows that Joseph Banks secretly drops quarters into a machine that lifts a private window so that he can view men engaged in sexual fantasies that he can never have. Joseph Banks sits there with his small manhood wrapped with one hand and feeds quarters into the machine. The window opens about as wide as the young man’s asshole while another man slides himself in and out him. Gritting his teeth, sweat and spit sprays the bent over slave, who keeps begging him for more; begging for harder. The boy is begging for faster.
Sodemy; definitely a sin, right?

Just as the bent over young man quickly turns around, leaking spermicidal fluids and sweat from his stretched and swollen asshole, the young man’s eyes glow with ecstasy. He drops to his knees with his mouth wide open, just inches away from the stiff purple tipped erection of his master. The window slides shut as Joseph Banks wraps himself in a towel and tilts his head backwards to view the ceiling as his body tenses up. His mouth wide open and his eyes squeezed shut; he shoots his salty load into the towel. Joseph Banks slides another quarter in the machine as the window raises for 20 more seconds.
Masturbation; maybe not a sin, but he makes it disgusting.
Watching the young slave swallow and wiping his mouth, Mr. Banks smiles and waves as the young man blows a feminine kiss towards him. Mr. Banks has seen this young man before. Maybe his daughter has pointed this boy out at some of the swim meets that she covers for the school paper. The boy, whose father wore a badge and patrolled their streets, smiled. Everyone has secrets. No one has secrets.

To Whom It May Concern:
Let me do it! I can do it! Let me finish this man with an undersized dick and love for young boys!

P.S. I’ve seen the same set of towels at my friend’s house. Gross!

*

Tom looks at Carla and quickly double takes. “Where have you been?”
“What are you talking about?” she quickly replies.

“Well, it’s been two days and you didn’t even call in. I told the manager that you were sick and couldn’t call in. I told the manager that I spoke with you and I would cover your shift.”

“Tom, you do know that you are the manager, right?”

“Yeah; that makes it even weirder that you didn’t call me. What the hell was going on?” He asked as he smacked on a mouthful of chili covered fries.

“I wish you could understand, but I don’t think you want to.” She said as she started to doodle on receipt paper. She looked out of the window in hopes to see Nate; hoping for a little more explanation. She wanted to embrace this new perception, but wasn’t for sure if she could. She dreamed big, but could she take this new life and really understand it?

“Twenty bucks.” he said.
“Twenty bucks?” she asked with her eyes squinting. She glared at him as if she knew the very next thing he was going to say.

“Yes. Twenty bucks this has something to do with freaky friend in the suit. I know he has something to do with this.”

Her crush, her mentor, her Savior.
Anger began to rise