No, it’s not the Bible. Yes, I do still believe in the Bible.
No, I’m not a fucking atheist you pesky bastard.
I’m talking about a different Sacred Book.
A different one.
Not the bible.
The walk home from work is quite relaxing. It’s quite short, 10 minutes, but enough to take my mind off work. It’s great because the drive from home to work is more than triple the time of the walk because of constant closures and traffic. The route of the walk goes through a nature reserve that has a ridiculous price tag for the entry fee. Luckily for me, residents that live within 5km (about 3 miles, more or less) get free access. It’s like a retreat at the forest that my family and my beautiful, beautiful wife, Wendy used to go to every year. You may or may not be wondering what I meant by “used to”. See, my wife died of stage 3 brain cancer 5 years ago. For a whole year after she died, my siblings always used to come and visit me frequently, almost daily, to console me.
Then, I slowly got used to my new life, dropping Jimmy and Jason off and picking them up every day, making their lunches, bringing them on occasional trips. All the things a single widowed father does. I resorted to being always quiet and kept to myself most of the time. That was when I met Lucy. She was new at work, was single and had no children. The night after Lucy joined, I prayed to God(yes, I’m catholic, bitch) to let me speak to Wendy. Whether I imagined it or not, somehow I saw or rather heard God let me speak to Helen, Wendy’s sister instead. Similarly, she also died of cancer, stage 4. I asked if she and Wendy communicated often and she replied with a solid yes.
She then proceeded to tell me how she is so grateful for my support for Wendy when she died 13 years ago. I then asked her about Lucy, and she replied that Wendy already planned for Lucy to be her replacement. I tried to talk to her but a roaring voice from somewhere said “Your time is over. All the answers to your question shall be revealed at your temple of peace and nature, at the dawning of the sun.” I woke up breathing heavily and overslept that day and rushed to wake my sons went through our morning routine twice as fast as normal.
Still, I was late to work by half an hour to work. My boss didn’t mind me though, as he wasn’t an asshole and always likes to help his employees. After I finished work, I was exhausted.
Skip to 2 years later. Jimmy’s seven. Jason’s nine. I just got married to Lucy. The boys get used to their new stepmother. About 5 months after I got a fantastic promotion. My boss knocked on my office door about 15 minutes before I was due to leave work. “Can I speak to you privately for a second, Josh?” he said. Confused, I said, “Sure Mr Marlow. “ I replied. “It better not be about more work.” I joked. “I’m planning to leave the company to you when I, um, leave. As you know, I have no siblings, no wife, and no children. You’ve always been the kindest, most obedient, most trusted employee I’ve ever had.” I was astounded at first. Then, obviously, I accepted. He let me finish early that day. He then died of blood cancer less than a week later. Oh, remember how I said the voice in”heaven” said that I’ll find the answer tomorrow? I kept on searching everywhere within a 10km radius the next day as it was the weekend. Couldn’t find anything. I prayed that night, every night after that day that I would find it. I found it yesterday. It was a red leather book with a deep navy blue ribbon for a bookmark. The spine of the book was sawn into shape with golden string. It had no title on the cover, instead a gigantic red jewel sitting on a gold square. I took it home that day and you won’t believe what I read.