A Strange Day in the Middle of the Night

This evening I woke up, as I am apt to do in the evenings, and walked into the living room for a good stretch. There I spied an interesting thing. A mysterious envelope awaited me, just begging to be opened. It had my name and address in fine script, but no return address. Otherwise it was quite a nondescript letter. Of course, I was quite anxious to open it and discover what lay inside. Wouldn't you be?

First, though, I had to have a shower, and wash the remnants of the recalled doldrum dreams I'd dreamt throughout the day from my memory. Usually I prefer to remember most of my dreams, but I'd been up all night freestyling—cyphering—with friends and my dreams of the day had been in rhyme. This gets tiring after the fifth or so in a row, trust me.

After my shower, I had a few things I had to do, like feed my dog. She gets ornery if I don't feed her, plus that constitutes abuse. So after feeding her a delicious dinner of Gravy Train (40lbs for $17.99 at Tractor Supply, can't beat that, plus she loves the stuff), and providing her with fresh water, I ventured back inside to stand bemusedly before the small table beside the loveseat, on which rested the enigmatic letter.

Then I opened it.

Inside was one folded page of scented stationery, a check for $2.56, and an obviously old, slightly rusted key. The check was written to me, and the signature was spidery and incomprehensible, so I unfolded the stationery. In elegant calligraphy were written two paragraphs. I will not copy them down here, for the wording contained private details which I would rather not share, but the gist was that someone (I am not at liberty to say who, exactly) had died, and I had been the beneficiary of their will.

After paying off debts built up over years, the remaining sum of my benefactor's alegedly substantial wealth was the amount written on the check. Or at least, this is what I was to believe. As I had, and have, no reason to doubt this, I will assume this to be the case. The letter also explained the relevance of the key, in part: the key is to a safe deposit box in a bank in Columbus, about an hour's drive from my home. No further explanation was given.

Tomorrow I will find what secrets the safe deposit box holds.