The Reality™ Institute

To my impulsive friends:

Let my words strike at the very core of your souls and make you rise up out of your chairs… for I have been shot. Shake your fists in anger and scream out to the ceiling, “Why?! Why have you forsaken me?!” Demand to know the perpetrator of this crime and seek your vengeance immediately with no regrets. He’s tall with gray hair and a pipe and robe. He lives on Terrace Dr. in the gated community. Teach him a lesson that he will not forget, I say! And ignore any voices telling you otherwise. This, my impulsive friends, is my last dying wish to you. Because your impulse is a virtue! Not a thing to be worrying about, you haven’t even the time to worry about it. Seek out this man (and his saggy wife) and do your worst for you, my impulsive friends, are my heart and soul.

To my thoughtful friends:

Prepare yourself, for these words will shake the ground you walk on, the beds you sleep on, and the coffee you drink. After a proper amount of preparation, you may read on (but please do so with caution). I was walking home from the shopping district where I take psalms, but it was getting late. The sun began to set sooner than expected and I hadn’t my gloves on me (as they had been stolen the day before). So I took every step with efficiency, counting the paces from street corner to street corner to ensure I would arrive home promptly. I remember that all other thoughts had been pushed aside while I plotted a course through the park and down several side streets. My mistake was, of course, the short cut through the gated community. I have climbed those fences in the past without much trouble, aside from guard dogs and the like, but was unprepared for what would lay ahead… a new security system. My journey over the fence trigged an alarm which, in turn, triggered the defensive aspects of a wealthy resident’s mind. I landed in his backyard greeted by the sound of a ringing the likes I have never heard! The scream of his madam was its only match. And before me stood the man with graying hair, adorned with the finest silks from India, and smoking the cherry oak pipe of his dead grandfather. How he could smoke as he pointed a rifle in my face I will never know (because I will most likely bleed to death before I figure him out, though it was probably some corrupt moral code inserted into his brain by his parents as a child).

“I mean you no trouble, good sir!” I called out from ten yards away. “This is just a short cut. I was making my route as efficient as possible, you see, and my home lies just on the other side of those tracks. I know I must look atrocious in these scraps of wool. In fact, I must appear to be a vagabond who is breaking into these very premises to steal a good amount of silverware or your young madam’s jewels, but I assure you I had no such intentions in mind!”

His rifle remained pointed at me despite my best efforts to unfix its gaze. But I could see my words having an effect on him; maybe he was moved by the pitiful state of my appearance or a memory of a beggar he befriended as a child.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be on my way. Don’t mind if I just hop this fence here.” And I was making my way over the fence when the madam stepped out in her own fine silks. She screamed,
“Shoot him, Harold! He’s getting away!”

Without thinking twice, he pierced my skin just above the collarbone. I lay bleeding atop the fence, holding on with all my strength (for some reason), when he came over and pushed me onto the other side.

Now, lying in the bushes just outside this gated community, I am bleeding to death. And I pulled this pad of paper out of my coat to write this to you, my thoughtful friends, for you make up my inquisitive nature, the very essence of my thoughts and I will always cherish you for that (until I am dead). If the authorities or this community’s guards don’t throw my body into the river, please return my pocket watch to Madeline.

With Kindness and Regret,

The Dying Daniel “Stovepipe” Kingsley