Reunion

So, I, that is me, Stanley Eideltree, raced down the road with curious anxiety. I had received a brief letter stating:

"Dear Mr. Eideltree,

An anonymous party has requested your presence at a gathering to discuss a matter of utmost importance. This party has offered to pay all of your travelling expenses, and gift you with ten-thousand U.S. dollars for your cooperation. We are quite serious and have enclosed a check for one thousand dollars to ensure that you will be here to receive the rest of your reward. This is no scam. All that we ask is that you join us for a single evening of utmost importance, and also promise that this single evening will be of high educational value.

Sincerely,

-a party yet to be named"

and surely enough, the plain white envelope contained, directions to a hotel named the Pierre Plaza in Ney York (which was a short distance from my apartment near the shore in Ney Jersey), and a check for one thousand dollars. Immediately I guessed that it was some sort of scam, so I took it to the local bank to check it out. Sure enough, it was real. The bank cashier handed me ten one-hundred dollar bills. And with the promise of nine more thousand dollars, who wouldn't have wanted to check it out? Even if it turned out to be a hoax, I would still be ahead by a thousand bucks!

On I drove, through expressway and road, finding my way through the giant buildings which once drove me out of the city when I was in my late twenties and desiring an atmosphere with a little slower of a pace. I arrived at the hotel late in the afternoon. I then checked in there, and tipped the bellboy who gave me explicit instruction to report to one of the elevators at eight' o clock, and tell them that I was in the 'reunion party'. "What sort of reunion?" I wondered, solemnly.

At that exact moment, I saw an old high-school fling of mine, checking in the room across the hall from me. Without hesitation, I blurted out, "Hey, Susan!" Her face lit up and a smile stretched from ear to ear. I loved that smile. I never told her so, but that very smile was the same smile that attracted me to her in the first place.

She quickly enquired, "What are you here for?"

"I dont really know," I admitted. "A reunion of some sort, I think."

"No way! That's what I'm here for too!"

"Well, we dont have to meet for a couple hours," I suggested. "Would you like to get something to drink somewhere?"

"Actually, I'd love that. Just let me drop off my things and I'll be right with you." Her voice echoed in my head. We had been such a great couple at the time, split up by her parents, who accepting a job in New Mexico, was forced to leave in the middle of her Junior year of high school. I guess I still liked her more than I cared to admit. We wrote for a while, trying to hold together somehow, but you know the story, things just didnt work out.

We met in the lounge of the enormous hotel. She sat down and smiled at me. I smiled back and put my head down, trying to avoid making eye contact, scared that she could read into me and see how much I still loved her.

"You know, this must be some kind of school reunion." She broke the brief silence. "There is our old science teacher, Mr. Gullen. And the table next to the door- that's Steve and Dan from the football team. Boy, they do look different. What I want to know is: how did the school get the money to pay for all of this?"

"Not only that," I added. "But high school reunions usually invite the graduating class, and you left in the Junior year."

"I was so torn up when I left you." she admitted."I would not talk to my father for weeks for breaking us up. I cried for days." I smiled, speechless with flattery, and struggled to keep a small tear from forming, as she went on. "When I began school in New Mexico, I was so mad at our break-up that I turned into rebel-girl. I started smoking, drinking, and hanging out with too many of the wrong guys (if you know what I mean). I became a school icon as a misfit and trouble-maker." Susan paused to sip her martini. "Then, one night when the crew and I were hanging out drinking, we hit the back end of a pick-up truck. The high rise of the truck went through the winshield, killing the driver and front-seat passenger immediately. I was the only one to survive the crash. The jolt was enough to knock me back into place, and triggered me to concentrate on school. Ive pretty much cut out most of my social life ever since. Right now, Im going to school to be a surgeon. I am practically finished."

"Wow." I shook my head. Patiently waiting for my turn to speak.

"Oh, look at me. I'm talking your poor head off, Stan."

"No, that's all right." My mind scrambled to think of something to talk about, which proved difficult, for I was hypnotically transfixed on the seemingly everlasting beauty of her face. "My story is less mesmorizing as yours, I'm sure. But Ive been working odd jobs and saving up to (whenever i can) travel around. I went to Italy last summer. Right now I'm trying to con my customers into believing that I'm a computer technician, when all I really have is a couple months of experience in the Radio Shack repair center."

So we conversed for as long as we could until seven forty-five PM. All the while, I grew more comfortable with her nearly forgotten presence. All that while, I noticed more people from our school. Then I noticed an old man that used to work at a convenience store where I grew up. More and more people I recognized, though not all from school. Could this be a wild coincidence? I discussed these in length with Susan. But she recognized only handfull of students from their former high school.

I left for the elevator with Susan. As we chatted, I think she was falling back in love with me again too. And why not? It made too much sense. She, a professional doctor, soon to finish school and wanting to settle down soon thereafter, and me, a hapless romantic, waiting patiently for that one woman to come along and fill that empty void in my life, we were falling in love again. Before the 'big mysterious reunion' we confessed this reviving love to each other and had promised to meet again. Soon. After the meeting.

As we walked down a long thin hallway (after the elevator operator had taken us to a mysterious, numberless sub-floor) we glanced at the people around us. There were men and women of all types and sizes. Some who travelled to the meeting were as young as fourteen and as old as ninety-four. I now knew that this was no high school reunion. The ten thousand dollars, I found, was now in the very back of my mind as questions filled out their place.

We funneled into a room the size of a professional baseball stadium. How they constructed this site underground was beyond my comprehension. The whole room was packed with people, mostly people I didn't know. As people arrived, they began refamiliarizing themselves with each other. Little cliques could be seen forming, and many of the people knew at least a couple others there, too. Then, after several minutes of chatting and organizing, a large telscreen lowered into the center of the stadium sized room. The lights went out. Upon the screen appeared, as the lights went out, a mans head. The head wore goggle shaped spectacles. He had a thin, receeding hairline, and although not smiling, his lips were stretched tight across his teeth. This figure was vaguely familiar, but was lit by a bright blue light which radiated from above him.

He spoke:"Dear ladies and gentlemen! please take your seats!" It took mere seconds until he had everyone's undivided attention. "My name is Eric Stanley!" The voice boomed with a whiny nasal sound. "You all know my name, or should. Because, even if you dont know me, I know you-Every single one." The name rang a bell. I knew him in high school, I think. He was a nice kid. Shy. Gullible. One of those kids that slips in between the cracks, and you have no idea what happened to him. This man on the telscreen, however, did not look like Eric Stanley though. Eric had a kind loveable face. This monster on the screen bordered on looking like a lunatic. "Some of you I grew up with as a child." Eric continued. "Some of you know me from high school. Even my relatives have been invited to this gathering on the same promise that you will be rewarded with ten-thousand dollars. I now withdraw that offer. You will walk out of here with much more than that. A few union workers who had nearly left, changed their minds and returned to their seats. "My life was a nightmare. And how many attempted to make my life easier. I have taken the last few years of my life saving and working for all of the arrangements planned for tonight. The money, the hotel, everything you see before you is paid for. I'm sure that when you first received the thousand dollar checks, they were met first by suspicion and doubt. And how many of you really believed that I would pay you ten thousand dollars each? You are all greedy pigs. You have all gladly accepted my gracious gifts for which I have spent many years toiling. Yet, as a young man I toiled equally for acceptance into the friendship of almost every one of you. You wasted no time with an introverted little kid like me. And how many of you looked at the weathered old bum in front of the hotel in disgust, and how many of you talked to him, or tried to buy him a meal. That old bum was me! Now look at you. I am, unbeknonst to many, the richest man in the world! Now you will do whatever I say look at you all scurrying through my little gerbil race, flocking to where the money is. Tell me now, do I look like God to you?" Sweat was now pouring from my face, and as I looked around, so was everyone else, but somehow my eyes returned like a magnet to the giant face on screen. "Well that is how you treat me. My whole life, I have offered you the chance at a friendship. Truly a friend is better than money, no? Yet here the money is, and here you are at my beckoned calling. Well, if I were God, perhaps I would give you all a chance to repent. I am not God, however, I am man and I am very impatient. The end of my life is near, and all of you people are my life. So yours will end with mine. If I die, of what use are any of you to me?"

Seconds passed, and nothing happened. No one left their seats. The doors locked. The real Eric Stanley appeared in the middle of a stage underneath the telscreen. He was thin and tiny, but his recent speech caused his image to strike terror into the hearts of all around. I watched Stanley's face closely as random people in the audience panicked and screamed, trying to escape the wrath of Eric Stanley. His mouth whispered to himself, saying "They still dont understand. God forgive me."

Everyone in that room was killed that evening, even Eric Stanley.