I felt like putting up an interesting little hangers-on story.

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After another long fight with his soon-to-be divorced wife, Richard made his usual rounds around the park to cool his raging temper and to lower his constantly on-edge high blood pressure. Breathing heavily and walking the circumference of the park a couple times, his mind continues to race with questions he was burning to answer;

Why does she think I'm the only one having to make up for lost time and money? Wasn't I the one stuck in the hospital mentally paralyzed by a heart attack? What more can I possibly do to pay the medical bills while also paying all this money for the divorce? How many more surprises can one person possibly handle?

Stopping for a short break and leaning on the steel gates covered with the morning's frost, Richard found himself staring at the imprints he had made just moments ago.These were his own footprints leaving a track behind him in the dirt, and he believed the thudding of his shoes upon the ground was the sound of actually getting somewhere. He continued to move forward.

The wind picked up and rushed through the thin strands of his slowly graying hair, ruffling and swaying stiffly like the blades of grass crunching beneath his feet. After another fierce bout of ice-cold wind, he felt something sticking to his left leg, helplessly struggling to break free of its weary imprisonment against his stiff jeans and the pressing wind.

Looking down he saw that it was just a dirty, orphaned piece of mail, probably from a couple months ago judging by the aged condition it was in, he thought. To examine it more closely he reached out, grabbed it, and turned it over to see who it was for and immediately dropped it, his eyes widening to their fullest extent and his heart drumming out Indian decrees.The envelope fluttered to the ground and began to move across the field, the wind sweeping it back into its chilling arms to carry it onwards once more.

Coming back to his senses, Richard ran across the frozen earth to bring the envelope back from the wind's clutches. With shaking hands he started to open it, wondering...wondering how an important government letter with the official stamp of "TOP SECRET" across the top of it with his name and address could have been lost and left out to defend itself against the elements...leaving him to wonder;

What could possibly be inside?

to be continued...
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