To Whom It May Concern
A Short Story

Dear Stranger,

I've heard of those stories where children end up dying, parents divorce, and other horrible things happen to people that don't really deserve it. I didn't believe them until they became the number one topic of conversation for most people I know.

Class A people who lived wonderful, prosperous lives with no regrets reach a certain point, where for some reason, the whole world seems to have turned against them. I hear about these kinds of things everyday on the news and from chat I accidentally eavesdrop in around me community. I'm afraid of those kinds of things happening to me – those are my worst nightmares.

I've heard those stories so many times they've become the biggest cliché for me. To think that one day my life could potentially sink so low as to become something of such drivel and pity. That would make me want to die.

I feel so hideous to think that these stories are so absurd, especially since I've heard some of them second-hand from people I love. But, to be honest, I have no sympathy for anyone.

I've asked so many people why on Earth these things happen. The great question is, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" What's the answer to that?

That's why I'm writing to you.

To Whom It May Concern:

I find it very odd that you've stumbled upon my treasure. It's also peculiar that you found this, picked it up, and intended to use it as a journal of sorts. At least you believe in the magic behind this simple notebook.

What you are writing in was of great value to me until I began to hate its purpose. The composition that you are in possession of had one reason for being created. I don't think I can help you with what you're dealing with until you understand its magnitude.

When I was a child, in about the year of 2514, I was having a daily chat with my folks, well, my grandparents.

My mother and father were always at their double jobs working for the massive pollutant-riddance company in the city I lived. They were gone ninety-nine percent of the time, so I was forced to spend most of my childhood with their parents. I knew my mom and dad meant well, but I was never close with them.

My grandparents, completely opposite of my birth parents, were people with a lot of faith.

Everyday, they would go to a room in the basement of their home. There was a stone pillar that was placed on this highly vibrant velour carpeting. Every time I gazed upon, it seemed like it would just crumble before my eyes. Cracks lined the brittle structure, and I was clueless as to why it meant so much to them. It was the only slightly magnificent thing they had to their name.

They would get on their knees and clasp their hands together, closing their eyes. I would watch from the door around the corner of the room. One time, I finally asked them what they were doing when they did this trial everyday, and then they told me of what they referred to as ancestors and little thing called prayer.

Family that lived hundreds of years before me still existed, they said. They lived among us in a spiritual form where they weren't tangible, but they still watched over us.

"If we pray to them and love them like you love your family, they will keep you safe," they always told me. Since I was young and naïve, I believed every word they said. After observing their routine more and more, I began to join them in their prayers.

I looked up to my grandpa one day and asked him skeptically, "How do we know they're there, grandpa?"

"My parents, and my parent's parents, and so on lived long ago, my child. When everyone reaches a certain age, they go to another realm where they can live the rest of their lives happily forever. From that realm, they watch over us. On the occasion, they will come down, back to Earth, and grant us a visit," then he held up his finger to his mouth and said in a hushed tone, "but only in spirit."

I looked up at him with wide eyes. I dwelled on what he said for a long time, thinking that he avoided my question, but maybe that was the only explanation he could give.

Dear Stranger,

Your story is touching. Your story is lovely, but it's hundreds of years later, and you still haven't given me any insight into anything. I'm beginning to think this is a fraud, just to let me into some sad story to waste my time.

To Whom It May Concern:

Fraudulent, you say. Then my friend, you are more skeptical than I was. How else could anyone say that something like this caliber of magic is fraud? There's proof, right in front of you that that kind of magic exists. Have any human eyes, besides the ones in my tree, seen this wonderment? I'll let you ponder that for a moment…

I didn't think so.

Anyway, growing up with this belief that my past family could possibly be luring above my head granting me a good life, I was now an adult. I worked for a special unit on the other side of the world that studied in the advances of the most bewildering areas of science. I worked there as an inventor.

I lived as far away from any immediate family as possible, by myself, with a pillar and velour carpet my grandparents gave me as a going away memento. I haven't spoken to any of them in years.

One night, I laid awake in bed, reminiscing on the day I asked my grandfather that question.

How do we know they're there, grandpa, I thought hundreds of times over. How do we know?

Then, as a side project when I was away from the lab, I intended on making my own answer to that question.

I wanted to talk to my family. I didn't know them, but I wanted to talk to them. That was my dying wish.

After many months of delicate testing, hundreds of failures, and thousands of anecdotes, I finally created the first time defying tool – the book that is now in your hands.

I made it so that this note, when carefully written in, would be able to send itself into a certain era, time, and place, then to a certain individual. I searched for my past family members and went first with my great-great-great grandfather who had been deceased for over a century.

The note would obviously reach to my family when they were still alive, and not in what my grandparents referred to as "the other realm."

I finally wrote all the necessary information in the book, shut it, and then it disappeared into oblivion. I had made another copy of the same notebook to where it was linked to the other one. When my great-great-great grandfather would write in it, I would be able to speak with him through his messages.

I was a speaker to the living dead.

Dear Stranger,

So you're telling me that this note accidentally got to me from one of your relatives?

To Whom It May Concern:

Slightly – after I was done speaking with my great-great-great grandfather, I had him send the note to a relative even farther back. He sent it to the year 1942, over six hundred years ago, to one of my relatives who were in a war.

My relative in the war was on the brink of death upon writing me a message. He told me that he would send it to someone else he knew from the past, but apparently, it didn't make it to its destination.

I didn't get what I wanted, which were life's answers and what I've been praying for all of these years. And now, I'm stuck with some snotty teenager expecting answers from me. Now can you tell why I hate this darn thing?

Dear Stranger,

Sorry to be a bother…

To Whom It May Concern:

I wasn't done! I learned to expect disappointment from then on out. Usually, when something appears too good to be true, it probably is. Nobody knows everything, and that's what I thought would come from people who lived so long. From the time they were born, to the time they died…

I'm finished with my "sad story," as you say.

Dear Stranger,

Are you dead, by chance?

To Whom It May Concern:

Potentially.

A moment went without a response.

To Whom It May Concern:

What do you wish for me to tell you, now? I'll deal with what you ask the best I can manage.

Dear Stranger,

Nevermind.

The stranger smiled from her realm, and she picked up her pen once more.

To Whom It May Concern:

Glad to be of service.