A Novel

Good Day!

I am Steven I. Apollo, a single professional, currently employed as a financial advisor in an insurance company. Yes, yes, those words might bore you, but c’mon, at least let me introduce myself first okay? As I was saying, I’m not that wealthy, just a simple and ordinary guy just waiting for my time to shine in life. No, not death, silly, just a chance to redeem myself to the world, build my wealth, and be the richest among my peers. Well, it was at least my dream before something happened to me approximately three years ago. Want to know the story? Alright, to better illustrate, I’ll shift my perspective to you, and I want you to imagine that you were in my shoes that time. Ready? Here we go.

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You are an insurance agent, just finished working for eight hours after not getting a single client to buy some insurance, amidst all the saliva you spent trying to earn some commission for your savings. You caught the train going to your station. As you were inside the train, distance from the crowd was very tight due to the rush hour. You smell the unpleasant scent of sweat from different types of workers inside the train. Finally, you arrived at your station. You check you little Timex watch, and the little hand pointed to the number seven. Your stomach is crumbling as you walk towards your home.

You arrived in an old building about ten stories tall, took the slow elevator towards the seventh floor, and stood right in front of your small and rented apartment. You turned the rusty doorknob, opened and closed the door.

“Finally, home sweet home.” You said to yourself, smiling, as you tuned the lights on and went to your tiny kitchen to get some food.

You live alone, by the way, in this small apartment and you usually rely on processed and ready to eat food that would make you satisfied and live happily throughout the night.

As you ate some heated mac n cheese, you suddenly felt a vibration from your right pocket. It was your phone. You picked it up and saw the notification.

You have one new mail.

Is it a new client? Is it a promotion? These thoughts were playing around your mind as you unlocked your phone a security code.

Curious who would send a mail at that time of the day, you unlocked your phone and opened the email. To your surprise, the email was a letter. No, not the usual letter with an introduction, body and conclusion. It was not even a sentence. The email consisted of the following:

“I”

“Are you kidding me??” you said to your phone. “If this is a prank, it ain’t funny. Who would even send an email with just a single letter?”.

You looked at the email address of the sender. It was all random numbers and letters combined into one. You searched the email address on Google, and it failed to give you results. You then placed the email under spam messages.

“If this is a virus, I swear I’m going to report it to the authorities”

You were slightly annoyed by what your eyes just witnessed. You were expecting a letter, and you were given a letter. Only, it was just a subject to a predicate.

As you were on your bed and about to sleep that evening, you can’t stop thinking about the email. Now you don’t think of the who but the how and whys the email was sent to you out of the many billion people in this world.

The next night, after a day without a single client who bought a policy again, your phone, sitting on the kitchen table, lit and vibrated again. Curious, it was another email notification that read:

You have two new mails.

“Hmm, who could it be this time?” you whispered as you grabbed your phone to open the email.

To your surprise, it was the same email once again. The letter, “I”, was once again the main story of your mind that evening. Only this time, the message was sent twice, but with different email addresses as the first one.

“Alright, this has got to stop! Tomorrow, the person sending this to me shall stop. It is time to report.” enraged as you turned your phone to sleep.

The following morning, you woke up at six in the morning, and ate some heated pancakes from your rusty old refrigerator. You got dressed wearing your usual attire, a slightly oversized black suit, with a pair of perfectly tailored navy blue pants, and of course your little Timex watch on your right wrist.

You went outside of the building of your small apartment. You walked straight to the station to catch the morning train. As you entered the train, you smell the diverse aroma of perfumes surrounding the walls of the vehicle. There were all kinds of scents such as citrus, and wood from the workers going to their respective offices. You arrived at your station, and walked straight to the building of your office.

By the way, the building of your office is a tall and modern structure, mostly designed with glass and white concrete which awfully reflects the glimmering rays of the sun when one looks at it directly. Personally, I really think that the building itself can make people blind. Talk about insurance right? Anyway, back to the scene.

As you walked towards the entrance of your company’s building, you heard an unusual sound coming from the back of your ear. On estimate, the sound was about ten meters away from you. It then came to your senses that it was a child’s voice, saying the letter “I”.

As you heard the letter, a sudden burst of cold spikes ran through your nerves. That was the exact message in the emails that you’ve been getting the past two days. You even thought that this may just be a coincidence. So, you turned towards the direction of the voice.

Only a few people were between you the child, so it wasn’t really hard to spot where it was coming from. It was a small boy. As he was still saying the letter I, you took slow steps towards him. His voice was very subtle yet, full of meaning, as if there was a message behind the letter he was saying. As you came closer and closer, he noticed your presence, and your eyes met.

“I?” he asked you.

You looked at him from top to bottom. He was a small kid, about ten years old. He was wearing a dirty and loose brown shirt. His shorts had small holes near the thigh area and you can tell his shoes were too big for his size. He was also carrying a card, which you had no clue what it was.

After about a minute of thinking about what to say, you finally asked him, “Were you the one sending emails to me all this time?”

As you asked this question, his face began to lit.

“Yes!” he was smiling as he gave you the small cardboard card he was carrying.

It was a business card. As you focused yourself on the business card, you noticed it was crumpled and splattered with some mud. Some details were only present, the name of your company, and email address, and the letter I. As you analyzed it even further, to your surprise, it was your email address on it. The rest were not seen clearly due to the mud covered.

That was it. It was the epiphany of all epiphanies in your life. The answer to the questions that kept bugging you all this time. The series of events perfectly matched just like the key to a door.

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Now, I know you want to know all the details that happened during and after the boy and I talked. Basically, he wanted me to help him with his family problem, specifically his mother who needed the assistance due to her sickness. In reality, it isn’t that easy to offer a policy, especially when the customer has some high risks when applying for an insurance. However, I tried to talk to my manager and eventually got them a loan with a minimum policy.

Ultimately, things didn’t end there. Perhaps, it was just the beginning. As I am talking to you now, I have been creating programs that would benefit the less-fortunate people of society through fund-raising events and donations. The experience I had with the little boy eventually changed a part of me for the rest of my life. It is truly amazing how a single letter can create not just a sentence, but a whole novel about one’s life.

Sincerely,

Steven I. Apollo