Something to Look Forward to

To whoever finds this,

I have mailed this letter to your address randomly. I apologize for assigning you this responsibility, but I do hope that you will take this matter seriously. You may perceive this letter as the rambling of an old man and you wouldn’t be completely wrong, but I assure you that it is in your best interest to read it until the end. I am a very wealthy man and you will be heavily compensated for any trouble this letter may cause you.

You probably never heard of me even though I’m one of the richest men in the country. You sure can get rich by owning a printer company, but you don’t get very famous… I can tell you that much. You can’t make a fortune like mine without being willing to make sacrifices. And God knows that I’ve had my share. If you did hear about me at some point, it was probably in the papers. These vultures won’t leave me alone. They try to tarnish my reputation with headlines like “Multi-Millionaire sued by his own son for breach of contract” or “Printer magnate pollutes our rivers without shame”. Usually, I don’t care what crap they write about me. To be honest, I don’t care about what anyone thinks about me these days. But their latest article really made me grind my teeth:  “Arthur DeWitte continues his battle against cancer”. It didn’t make me mad because they told everyone about that rotten disease that’s been eating me alive for two years, or even because it made me look weak… It was because the article mentioned my sweet Elena. Elena was my life. Cancer also got to her a few years ago. She was a real angel when she was alive so I guess that’s why Heaven called her a few years before her time. She was the only person in the world that could make me smile. Elena had a way of touching people’s hearts. Something I’ve never been good at. 

Only she knew how to talk to our son, David. He’s 32 years old now, but deep down he is still the same spoiled brat he was as a child. He thinks everything is going to fall down on his laps without having to break a sweat. It’s probably our fault though. My guess is that he acts like a lazy bum because Elena couldn’t say no to him as a child and I wasn’t around enough. I was too busy with work to play dad with him. We haven’t talked in years and now it’s too late. Our relationship ended when I told him he’d no longer be working for my company... Even after I was gone. If only my son was more like Robert. Robert is my most dependable employee and the only person I talk to on a daily basis. If someone in the company needs anything from me, they need to go through Robert instead. I find this way of running things very alleviating. I can’t deal with other people anymore. I used to have more tolerance before, but now it feels like I don’t give a crap about anybody else. Why would I though? Elena was the only other person who ever gave a damn about me. Except for the brief fleeting moment she was in my life, my motto has always been: Gotta look out for number one. I also gotta look out for my legacy now. That’s why my son isn’t getting any of my shares in the company once I croak. My son probably thinks I’m a horrible father, but hopefully, he’ll learn a lesson out of this. The same lesson I learned from my father. You can’t count on anybody else but yourself. You have to build character and tenacity. That’s the only way to be taken seriously in this dog-eat-dog world. This way of thinking gets you ahead in life, but it’s also a lonely road where you end up making many enemies. I’ve been called a lot of names over the years, but one thing I’ve never been called is a quitter. I’m one tough bastard! That’s why I didn’t want this stupid cancer get the best of me. One of the perks of being filthy rich is that you can make pretty much anything possible. The only thing I can’t do is to cheat death. I did find a way to escape it for a while anyway. Until they find a cure for my damn cancer, that is. It’s called “cryopreservation”. Basically, they’ll put me in a container and slowly freeze me like a turkey the day after Thanksgiving until technology is advanced enough to thaw my wrinkled body back to life and get rid of this godawful disease. Chances of that happening are pretty slim right now though. Science has a long way to go before achieving that miracle! Even if it’s unlikely to succeed, this whole operation gets you thinking about the future though. At first, I thought it was a great idea. I hadn’t fought so hard all my life to get beaten by some stupid disease. I was gonna live through it. But as you get older, cancer spreads and you get more tired and more bitter. And then, all these questions start going through your head. If they put me under, who’s to say I’ll ever wake up again? And If I do, how long will I have been out? Decades? Centuries? What will be waiting for me out there? Will I be the same old bitter man I am now, or will I have something to look forward to? I’ve started feeling like left-over meals that weren’t eaten in time. They’re about to go bad so you put them in the freezer and think: I’ll just save it for now! It might be useful at some point... If I ever run out of better things to eat. Who knows if I’d ever be useful again? Lately, I’ve started to feel like I’ve done my time…

Robert is supposed to put me in the cryopreservation chamber this very afternoon. There are only a handful of companies that offer this service in the world and I wouldn’t trust any of them with my life. That is why I personally bought all the necessary equipment to carry out this procedure in my own facility. Since Robert is a meticulous man, everything is supposed to go very smoothly. However, right after Robert was done preparing for the cryogenization procedure, I switched the glycerol container for replicas. I won’t get into details, but basically, glycerols are an essential component of the process to ensure that ice formation doesn’t destroy my body. Robert will probably hold himself accountable for my death, but this letter should exonerate him from all doubts and culpability. 

 By the time you read this, I will be frozen, dead, and crystallized. That is partly because the damn post office is so slow. I guess it belongs to another era, just like me. This letter might be considered as a suicide note or a testament and, frankly, I don’t really care. I don’t think dwelling on the past ever did anything good for anyone so I don’t have a lot of regrets to share, but I did feel like I owed the world an explanation. I guess my only regret is to not have enjoyed to the fullest the beautiful moments I shared with my wife while she was alive. Always projecting myself in the future has caused me a great deal of disappointment, and I guess I should have enjoyed the present moment when I had the chance. Looking back over my life made me realize I no longer want to be part of this word.  I arrived at the conclusion that I have nothing to look forward to. I am an old man who’s lived everything he had to live and it’s time to finally throw in the towel.…

As for my last wishes, I want you to deliver this letter to my notary, Mr. Benjamin Cornwall. For this, you will receive two thousand dollars as stated in my will. To my son, I bequeath a copy of this letter so he may be better equipped to understand his enigmatic father. I also wish him the best of luck to make his mark in this crazy world if he wants to, and more importantly, live a life he will be proud of. To my assistant, Robert, I bequeath my shares of DeWitte Printers, valued at over 73 million dollars. Please let it be known to him that he is the most hardworking person I have ever had the chance to meet and my only wish is that wealth will make him happier than it made me.

Yours truly, 

Arthur DeWitte