Twisted Roads – Twisted Horror Stories by Matthew Tonks

Be Happy

“Mister Rivers, come on in. I’m glad you found the time to come and see me,” the man says as he gestures for David to follow him into a small cubicle, and then to sit down. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to get around to calling you in. As you can see, we’re very much under the pump lately with everything going on in the factory, as we call it,” he says as he places a yellow folder on the desk and opens it up. Quickly, he looks over the pages inside. “David Christopher Rivers, born on the twenty-third of October, nineteen thirty-seven in Hobart, Tasmania,” he says as he looks up and smiles. “It’s a wonderful place, Tasmania. It’s been a long while since I’ve been down there. Is it still beautiful?”

“Sights that take your breath away,” David replies.

“Magnificent,” he says as he looks at the photo on David’s file and then at the young man sitting before him. “You’ve had some work done, I see.”

“At first, I wasn’t interested, but after I saw the work Doris had, I couldn’t resist,” David replies, clearing his throat.

“Everyone always succumbs to it, David, so please, don’t be embarrassed. If you can do it, and it makes you happy, then you do it.”

“That’s what everyone said,” David says with a smile.

The man smiles at David, looks back down at the file, and then back at him. “Sorry for this. There was a time when I knew everyone without the need for these files. But we’ve grown a little larger than when I first started all this, and I’m not as young as I used to be either. It’s a young man’s game nowadays. My children are better at this than I am, but sometimes—now and then—when we have someone like you come up for review, I like to come down and do it myself.”

“I-I-I-I… I’m honoured.”

“Tish tosh, you need not be honoured, David. It is I who am honoured to be sitting here with you. You see, you’re the sort of person this was all built around. A hard worker, devoted family man, and above all else, to put it in its simplest form, a good man. What I strive for you all to be.”

“T-T-Thank you, I’ve always tried my best to uphold everything my parents instilled in me as I was growing up.”

“Well, David, let me tell you, your father and mother are proud of the man you have become. I know that, and I’m sure you know that as well by now.”

“Yes, yes, it’s been good catching up with them again. It seems like more years than it has been since I last saw them, and of course my dear, sweet Doris, my apple.”

“It’s what makes life—family.”

“Can I ask you something? I mean, it’s probably the same question you’re asked all the time, but why?”

He laughs. “Why what?”

“Why all this? I mean, what’s the reason for it all?”

“For it all?”

“For life?”

He laughs again. “David, I may be God, but even I don’t have all the answers—not ones that can answer that question in a way you want it to be answered, anyway. But what I can tell you is one thing, and it’s the most important piece of the puzzle that so many misinterpret. Be happy,” he says with a broad smile. “That’s all you need to be; the rest, well, that’s just how you find it.”