by Kat Oliver

Created on: February 06, 2009

GHOSTLY VALENTINE

Cynical. Intolerable. Callous. Some of the nicer words my employees have for me, he thought. Maybe they're right, but I'm much too tired these days to care. I should have sold the business years ago.

Taylor slid his key into the tarnished old brass lock as heavy thunder rolled and fiery flashes of lightening sliced through the night sky. There was a time when storms had filled him with fear and rage, but he barely noticed them now. Feeling much older than his forty-five years, he wondered if anyone ever noticed or appreciated that he worked twelve-hour days.

His thoughts drifted back five years to a night much like this one when a violent storm had descended without warning brutally pounding the tri-state area, tragically changing his life forever.

A clap of thunder brought him back to the present, and a torrential rain began to fall from an angry black sky. Ignoring the weather, he stepped inside and closed the heavy old door behind him. I hate this house. Hate, my malicious, ever present mistress, you give me the strength to continue each day.

Looking around him he thought how little he cared about anything any more, his work, his home, or even his life. I used to be so passionate about it all. I want to care again, he thought, but I can't. My, God, why do I hang on to this house? I hate it! It brings me no pleasure. What need have I for an Eighteenth Century Georgian manor? I'm still relatively young. I don't want to die a miserable, lonely old man. There are too many memories in this house to love or to hate. I can't leave; I must stay. Dear Lord, when will you grant me some peace?

He glared at the unopened stack of mail that had accumulated during the week. Moving past the light switch and paying no attention to the dreary, peeling wallpaper, he reluctantly crossed the worn ash wood floor. Might as well get it over with, he thought.

A hazy golden glow from the lone streetlight filtered through the heavy dark brocade curtains standing guard along each side of the single window at the front of the sitting room. He gathered the stack with both hands and a bulky magazine slipped through his grasp to the floor. Leaning forward to retrieve it, the corner of a delicate scallop-edged pink envelope caught his eye. Something eerily familiar raced across his consciousness then disappeared. Shaking his head as if to clear some unknown thought and forgetting about the magazine, he gently tugged the envelope from the stack. Probably another unwanted social

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