I'm a loner. I think that is important to tell you. I don't have any real friends, I have acquaintances and colleagues but no real friends. I am not complaining.
I grew up as an only child. My parents died when I was young, from an accident, I suppose you could call it. I don't really remember them, but I guess I must not have liked them very much.
It was called a tragedy, not by me of course but by the counselors who visited me and the teachers who gazed at me with pitying eyes, and sad faces.
There was an investigation after their deaths of course, but they didn't find anything. Of course they didn't.
I grew up, as children tend to. My grandmother died when I was 18 and in college. That wasn't an accident, or a tragedy. She was old. There were no investigations.
When I was 20 I was struggling with one of the modules for my final semester in college, I felt that my tutor was marking me differently from everyone else. I put it to the back of my mind, and concentrated on studying for the rest of my exams.
One day our business class was cancelled. I met one of the girls from my class in the canteen, she was crying. 'Did you hear about Ms. Swanson?' She asked. 'Her car crashed, it was a tragic accident.'
It turned out that I had been right about Ms. Swanson and her overzealous marking of my exams, when she was replaced I scored much higher than I had expected to.
By the time I finished college I was a wealthy man. I was the sole benefactor of both my parents and grandparents estates. I had invested wisely, I was very comfortable.
I did all the things a good person is expected to do. I got a job, I bought a house, I married a woman, I reproduced.
Over the years, I lost people, as we all do. Some I had disliked, most I had tolerated. My town must be full of the unluckiest people in the world. Every other month it seems there is a gun going off by mistake, somebody walking under a bus, a dog attack. You know, tragic accidents.
I was happy, I suppose, at least for a while. Until about a month ago. My wife, Sue, told me we needed to talk.
We went out for dinner to her favourite restaurant. I suppose she didn't want a scene. She told me how she was cheating on me, how she had been cheating on me with various men since before we were married. She told me that neither of the children were mine, and she told me that she was leaving me for her newest lover because he could 'satisfy me in ways you never could.' While we were at dinner, she informed me, her lover was packing up our home, taking the children out of their warm beds and whisking them off to start a life away from me.
Stupid woman.
I smiled and nodded and agreed to pay maintenance for the children that I didn't own and would never see again.
Last week the police knocked on my door. 'We have some bad news.' they said, 'There has been a tragic accident
