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

as she listened to this fat fuck questioning the very thing he knows nothing about. He stands there with his mouth full of shit. He questioned her man; her neighbor? “I fucking quit!” she yelled at Tom. “I can’t do this anymore.” She angrily pushed the door open and stomped to her car and drove home.

To Whom It May Concern:
Gluttony is a definite sin! Chili Fries…at eight in the morning?


CHAPTER 18

Worried, I rushed home. Passing the carwash and lifeless streets, seeing the pack of stray dogs and blinking street lights; I pull into my driveway. Getting out of the car, I quickly run to Carla’s house.

“Carla! Open the door! I have to speak to you!” I kept banging on the door and looking through her cracked window curtains. I could see her mismatched furniture and lamps sitting quietly in the living room. “Carla!” I yelled.

The door of her house opened up and she stood there. She’s dressed in black leather pants and black leather stilettos with a black leather sleeveless shirt that hugged her body like a dream. Her hair was pulled tight on her head and formed braided pigtails on both sides of her head.

“Check this out!!” she said with a smile on her face. Her eyes turning from happiness to concern in a second, “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Catching my breath from exhaustion and excitement, I asked her what she did when she closed the door behind the girl in the pink nightgown.

“What do you mean? I don’t know!! I didn’t do anything. I just stood there frozen! You were there, you know!” she said with the look of confusion covering her pale face.

“Where is the tattoo?” I asked her as I pushed her inside and quickly peeked outside before I closed the door.

“We may be in some serious shit! Did you see the news?”

Thinking about the news, she remembered all the thoughts going on inside of her head. Her anger, her rage, her disgust. “I didn’t really pay attention. Why?” she asked with confusion.

“The little girl, the girl from the room, it wasn’t the past…it was the present! She’s missing!!” I said as I sat Carla down on the couch.

Carla’s new outfit squeaked as her legs bent and crossed while she sat there looking confused. “What are you trying to say, Nate? Are you saying…”

To Whom It May Concern:
This may be entirely inappropriate, but she looks fucking hot!!

Trying to figure out the best way to explain, I looked around the room as if searching for lifeline. I looked at the dark square shadow from the tape on the lamp shade and then at her big TV bowing her entertainment center; I’m still searching for the right words.

“Carla, I’m worried that we have ventured into something that we shouldn’t have.” He softly whispered, as if we were in a room full of strangers.
“What do you mean…you’ve never seen this before?” she asked.

“It’s always been the past for me…never the present.” Looking around the room for some other possible answers, I asked her if she recognized the man on the TV.

“Which man? The black guy or the white guy?” she asked with her eyebrows scrunched together in certain confusion.

“The fucking dead guy, Carla! You know the guy with the frantic mom and missing girl?” Looking in her eyes and still catching my breath, I see her eyes start to dart back and forth and her head lowers in concentration. Reality setting in, she slowly starts to figure things out.
“Shit! The little girl from the room, the younger version of me, in the pink.” she quietly mumbles to herself. She quickly pulls her head up and looks me in the eye. “The girl from the room is the girl missing! How can that be, Nate? I’m right here!! That was the past! That was my childhood secret. That was my pink nightgown with a unicorn on it. That was Miss Margaret! Look, Miss Margaret is right there, sitting on the shelf. That couldn’t be the same girl missing!”

Looking over at the shelf…there was no doll. There was no Miss Margaret. The room begins to shake and time slows down as we sat there on the couch. I grab Carla and pull her close to me as I reach for the pistol on my back. The wind, starting to blow, begins to lift the curtains from the windows. The shadows in the room begin to move as the voice in its surround sound starts to laugh. Soft and low, the voice begins to laugh. The smell of menthol fills the room as the shadow man comes to fruition. He stood there in front of me. This old man, dirty, ragged clothes, calming eyes and confident smile. With his Irish accent, he says, “Well, me young children are so confused. Please, don’t stand. Sit and stay comfortable.” Plastered to the couch, we are frozen; unable to move.

The old man steps from the shadows as his appearance transforms. A black suit; a double-breasted black suit with white pinstripes covered his body. A shiny black shoes and pants helmed perfectly for his height. His blue shirt has a white collar and his neck is supporting a black tie. In his jacket pocket sits a black silk handkerchief and his hair is very short. His face is scarred but clean. There is no shaving shadow. His eyes were no particular color…just calm.

The old man calmly places his hands behind his back and looks at us both. Both of us confused. Both of us scared. Both of us questioning our purpose and now questioning reality.

“Do you believe in God?” the old man asked. “Assuming that you don’t, I am here to assure you that your purpose has yet to be fulfilled. You have lived your life with misguided purpose for so long that it is now time for you to understand the true power that you have both been given.”

“You both have lived a life less than perfect. Actually, I guess you could say, filled with pain and sorrow. Life has passed you by and all you can do is reminisce. All you can do is remember the good and hope that the bad has given you purpose. I assure you…you have purpose.”

To Whom It May Concern:
God? Is that you?

The man walked around the room shifting his appearance from the studded man in a suit to an old woman being held up by a metal walker. His voice changed from Irish to English; Jamaican to Scottish; African to Australian. As he changes his voice, so does his appearance.

“Would it be safe to assume that you see yourself as normal…you know, given your unique ability to see people for who they really are? Shifting through time? Slowing time to a pause and fighting for hours…only to see that it’s been in seconds?” He said these things as the clock on the wall stopped. The curtains on the wall suspended in the air as if the pause button of life has been pushed waiting for the right time restart.

“Carla,” he calmly looked at he with a sincere smile, “you have entered this world by surprise. Your sense of purpose is questioned by your intension to free yourself from normalcy. Your secrets are secrets no more. Everyone has secrets. No one has secrets.”
“Nate, my son, your vision is skewed. You never really questioned purpose before, you just did your job and you did it well. You are my angel of life; my angel of death. Your purpose has become distorted.” Walking around the room shape shifting, he continued, “You seek answers from your past, but you are fueled by your anger. You haven’t listened to me in a long time. Why do you fight me? You hide from me. You seek refuge in the care of not-so-innocent Carla. Carla, in turn, has found refuge in you. You are one in the same. You’re no different from each other.”

To Whom It May Concern:
“…not-so-innocent Carla?” What the fuck does that mean?

Sitting there silent, frozen, I shift my eyes to Carla, my kindred spirit, my secret crush. She is my new purpose. She is my neighbor. She sits there motionless. Her eyes are filled with confusion and her face pale and perfect. Her hair shiny and pulled up in two braided pigtails. Her body covered in tight leather. Her perfection, innocence, vision, and purpose; all tied to me. I’m her teacher, her protector, her mentor, her conscience and yet, I have no fucking clue what’s going on. The blind leading the blind…how cliché.

The man keeps talking, explaining, walking, shape shifting. “Is this God?” I wondered to myself. Is this the one true God? Could it be that God himself or herself or itself has given me something to do? Have I missed the point? Have I squandered my existence? Could it really be that I am here to serve someone other than me or Carla?

Could it really be possible that Carla hurt this man on television and could she have really been the girl with the pink nightgown? Did I miss it?

The old man looked at me, now in the shape of a young black boy. He looks at me with compassion and concern. “No, I am not God. I am just a servant…just like you.”

Shifting into a 60 year old lady with pale blue hair and wrinkles that cover her face and hands, he begins to explain. “The world needs both violence and peace. Today’s war is tomorrow’s peace. Every once in a while, there is an injustice and someone is stripped of their chance to choose. Every once in a while, an innocent child is made to believe that they have no options. They believe that they are slaves to circumstance and slaves to those that choose for them. Your job, your calling, your salvation lies in the fact that you seek out these people. You are their Savior, their god, their future. You stop time and you eliminate those that take away the innocent’s chance to choose their own path…those that take away the future. Everyone has the right to choose their fate. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs are the kingdom of heaven.”
Note to self: He would use such a generic scripture.

Looking at Carla then back to the old man, who is now walking away with the appearance of a young girl wearing a pink nightgown, I close my eyes and pray to myself.

God, give me the courage.
God, give me the strength.
God, give me wisdom.
God, give me Carla.
God,