I should warn you all that you may want to get the hankies and tissue's ready for this chapter. It made me cry when I wrote it so I can only guess that it'll have a similar effect to some of you Mean Girls 3026 Part 13 Written by Toni Trepasso Edited by Gwen Brown, with my many thanks to her.

Once back on earth, I went to the storage unit address that my parents had included with the box of things they had the cryogenic lab hold for me. Grace and her mom, would be busy for a few days helping her dad overcome his bigotry, so I used the time to find out what tools I’d need to buy for my new job in Canada. Once I got to the storage unit, I made my way to the locker number on my key, and found that sometime in the past thousand years they’d changed from keys to finger print identification. THERE’S some good news. With nothing else I could do, I headed to the office to see if I could gain access to my locker. At first the woman behind the counter wasn’t going to let me in, because my parents had taken out the locker in the name of Josh Martin. Needless to say I didn’t look like a Josh anymore, let alone the fact that the locker account was taken out over a thousand years ago.

“Josh Martin is my great grandfather. I found this key with an old box of things from before his death.” I told her.

“Hold on, let me see if there is a hold on the account.” she told me as she looked it up on her computer.

After a couple of checks, she allowed me to clear out the locker and take the things with me. Good thing I came when I did too, because the account was about to run out of the pre-pay that my parents had paid for back in the day. I called Mark and he told me he’d be right over with his truck. So while I waited, I started to dig through the old things there to see what my parents had left for me. That’s when it really sunk in that they were gone, and these meager possessions were all I had to remember them by.

I found more pictures from back in the day, and couldn’t stop myself from flipping through them. One that caught my attention was of me, holding Cam, my cousin Jess’s son, on my motorcycle. I could feel the tears falling when I just looked at it and thought of all the good times I had with him and his dad. I took both of them to their first race, and Cam told me that he’d like to give it a try when he was old enough. What I didn’t tell him or his parents was that I’d set it up with a buddy from work who’s kids raced quarter midgets, that he could have a test session in one and that if he could handle the car, I’d build him one for his fifth birthday. The only problem was that I crashed my bike before that was allowed to happen.

I closed the photo book, and started to dig through the boxes, and after a couple of minutes, I was near the back of the locker and there I saw it. My old tool box. I made a path and started digging through the drawers to see what tools I had left, and what kind of shape they were in. As I started taking my mental inventory, I started counting my blessings that I’d spent the extra money for the high quality Snap-On box back in the day. Every tool I owned looked as new as the day I had bought them. Even my old “Thunder gun” impact guns looked to be in perfect shape. I had just reached the bottom drawer when Mark pulled up, and lucky for us, my parents had put my old ramps that I used to put my motorcycles in my pickup back in the day, in the locker with the rest of my things. With a little effort, we had Mark’s truck loaded with my box and I couldn’t help but laugh, when I saw the rear suspension about bottomed out from the sheer weight of my tools. We both decided that we wouldn’t put any more in his truck and I started packing my car with the remnants of the locker and we headed back to the house.

Once we had everything unloaded in the garage, I started to go through the boxes again and stopped with a chill when I read “We miss you Josh” on one of the boxes. I slowly untaped it, and saw an envelope on the top of a pile of old leather material. I sat on the cool concrete of the garage and started to cry when I read the letter inside.

My dearest Josh;

Mom and Dad

I just sat there in the garage, bawling my eyes out as I read the words that my mom had written me. I couldn’t believe I’d ever get the chance to hear from her again, but as I read her words, I could actually hear her speaking them to me. After I finally was able to calm down, I reached in the box and pulled out the leather material from the box. I was shocked to find that it was my old leathers from the accident. The leathers looked in good shape, but when I looked in the box again, I saw what was left of my helmet and my heart sank again as I pulled out the badly broken and shattered mess.

Inside the helmet was a small book. I started to flip through the pages, and saw it was a photo album, and the first page had the news paper clipping from my accident. I was shocked to find out that the truck that hit me was my buddy Dave. He was my best friend from back in the day, and we were inseparable. We’d hunt, fish, camp, ride, and go to Karaoke. I mean we did everything. He was the only one I felt I could talk to when I was having personal problems. And he knew that if he ever needed any help with anything, I’d be there for him. I mean hell; I gave the guy one of my kidneys when his shut down. If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.

As I flipped through the book, I saw photos of me in the hospital and then the day they had me frozen. It really sank in then, that they were all gone. And I felt great mourning for my friends and family that were gone. On the next page, was an envelope in the photo jacket, with a post-it not attached in mom’s writing?

Josh, don’t open this unless you’re with people who care about you.

I wasn’t sure about what was in the envelope, so I went into the house to find mom, and dad. They could see I’d been crying and both hugged me as we all took a seat in the living room so I could open the mystery envelope from my mom. I wasn’t sure I could take anymore surprises, so I asked mom to open it. I watched the look on her face and then watched as she handed the news paper clipping from the envelope to dad.

“What’s it say?” I asked shaking.

“David Sykes 50 was found dead today, in his apartment. The police said Mr. Sykes apparently hanged himself, distraught from severely injuring his friend in a two vehicle accident a month ago. Josh Martin, 31 of Fulton, was cryogenically frozen yesterday after sustaining ten crushed vertebrae when the motorcycle he was riding slammed head on with the truck Sykes was driving. Sykes was passing a car on a double solid line, and neither Martin nor Sykes saw the other coming, until they collided. Gerald Martin, father if Josh, told officials that Sykes had been distraught over the accident and Martin had tried to talk Sykes into getting counseling to help deal with his grief. Martin went on to say that neither he nor his son’s mother blamed Sykes for what happened. Stating that he knew the dangers of riding and that stretch of road is notorious for being hard to see what’s coming from the other direction.

Police are ruling Sykes death a suicide, stating that a note was found pinned to his shirt. Hand writing analysis showed that it was Sykes’ handwriting, and no charges would be filed.” Mark put the clipping down and watched the look of shock on my face.

“That cock.” I spat as I started to cry. “He never gave me a chance to say goodbye.”

Mom put her arm around me and rubbed my back as I sobbed into her shoulder. I couldn’t believe that my best friend had ended his own life, just because he had accidently hit me with his truck. It wasn’t his fault. But then again, I’d have probably done the same thing if I’d been the one in the truck and he was the one on the bike. I just closed my eyes and cried.

“You know, they say that if you write down what you want to say to someone who’s passed, and then burn it, they’ll get it.” Mandy told me as she rubbed my back.

I looked at her and nodded, wiping my eyes. I took the clipping and went up to my room, and set down to writing a letter to Dave.

Dear Old Man;

The dickhead

Now before you ask, I used to call him old man, because he was twenty years older than I was, and he used to call me dickhead, because I used to never have that filter between my brain and mouth. Whatever I was thinking, I’d say. That was the one thing Dave used to tell me he liked, since I never pulled any punches, and everyone always knew where they stood with me.

I lit the letter and smiled up at the single cloud in the sky as I watched the smoke rise and carry my words to my old friend. As I stood there and watched, I could swear I saw the cloud form into Dave’s face, but I just chalked it up to my imagination, but I did feel better when I finished burning the letter.

TO BE CONTINUED...