The Road Less Traveled by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

Rich man

This is the strange thing, as the miles tick off, the better I feel. I stop at a rest stop. I need to pee and I can. I am functioning. Checking the gas tank, it is still almost full even after a few hours of driving. I am hungry. My wallet no longer has my credit cards. My driver’s license has what I look like now.

It says that I am Jerold Kepler, thirty years old. It gives my address and all the credit cards are in that name. I really do not care but I do feel like I need to drive to that address. It is around an hour away. Might as well. It seems that is where I now live.

This cannot be right. This neighborhood is the richest side of this town. All these mansions are gated. Maybe I am a live in servant. Now at the gate, it automatically opens and I drive up to what looks like the garage. A man is there. Very officially dress.

“Welcome home Master Jerold. How was your new fuel system?” He walks over and opens the tank. “All day and only a quarter used. You will make another fortune on this patent.”

Acting like it is natural but I did hear Master. That means that I own this. My minds doing a fist pump.

It turns out that I am single. My inventions have made me a fortune. As I go from that garage workshop, I now am having memories come to me. I remember that old man life but now the knowledge of Jerold. He, I am a mechanical genius with quite a few patents. All those are in my name but are leased to various industries.

I am extremely well off. The good part is I am a phantom helper. I find deserving people and clandestinely help them. Find that struggling family and they get an offer of a new job with a generous salary. Now I am going to buy the hillside house I left.

That will be a retreat but there again it may be that there is a needy family. I’ll have Michael see if it is up for sale and then is there a needy couple.. There are too many memories in that house. There is a urge to see what happened there today.

I am drawn into the kitchen by the alluring odor of something being cooked. I just know that the cook is making a gourmet meal for me. I have staff but the cook is like any head chef, bossy. She spots me coming in and tells me that she does not like me prowling while she cooks.

The age difference is such that she could be my mother but more strict. I do think that she does imagine that I am her son. That does have a warm feeling in me.

“Get out of my kitchen!” She yells at me. “Your water is in your bar’s freezer. It should be frozen by now. I, for the life of me, cannot see what you see in frozen water. Dinner will be in thirty minutes. I catch you snacking and I’ll eat the dinner myself.”

I smile and ask her if she ever has had me not lick the plate clean. Then I smile and leave. That is what she always says when the plate is returned to the kitchen. I do not actually lick the plate, that is what the rolls are for. She is a really excellent chef.

She once ran a restaurant. Well known and proud of it. She had a staff and her diners always came back until the owners sold the place and the new owners cut her ingredients back to generic. She lost the customers due to the poor quality of the ingredients. She was fired and had lost her reputation because the new owner told the world that it was her cooking that was the cause.

She had a breakdown and I found her just sitting on a park bench. Almost homeless. I knew her by her quality and offered her the job. She took it. I knew what had happened. She now has a card and she is the only one that does the shopping. Every day, after my breakfast, she drives into town in a van that I had made for her. It keeps those items the need to be cool in one compartment. Another compartment is for the frozen. Then a mesh rack to keep those room temperature items fresh.

Only having to cook for me and the staff, she controls every aspect of the preparation. She has hired some of her old staff. They also love working here. No stress. I think that is why she treats me like a son. Grateful for all that I have done for her.

All my staff are of such circumstances. I am known as someone that picks up strays. What those don’t know is that I find discarded gems.

Waiting for dinner, I take my long shower and relax afterwards. I really do not have very many true friends but I do not allow hangers on, groupies who just want me to spend my money on them. I can spot the women that are just looking for a deep pocket. Right now, that is the least of my concerns.

I could get used to this life but what happened today. That was me who died on the road in front of my house. This is me but I have now a different body and a different name. What happened? They did not see or hear me. I have no idea. I need to search the web for anything.

Tomorrow I need to return to that spot but I also feel that I should not. What if I crossed a barrier. If I went one way could I actually go back? If that is possible, I am dead on that side. I choose to err on this side.

This side has the web like the other. Searching I do not find anything about an accident so I search my name and birthdate. Much to my shock, I find that I died as a youth. I fell through the ice in the winter as a ten year old and drowned. The article gave my parents names so I knew it was me.

It was always under research and in those fictional novels. Parallel worlds. Similar situations but with different results. Dodge the truck in one world but die as a youth in this one. I prefer this world where I’m alive as a different person. Not that dead prisoner

Calling up the geo map, I see that the road that I lived on does not even exist. Maybe I’ll buy that land but also the barrier may still exist. I don’t want to even come near to it. Crossing, there is a great possibility that I would be dead. Nope, that is one area that I will not enter.

Getting used to this life, I am informed, by my butler Michael, that I have a meeting with my favorite charity group. I just know that it is time for me to be informed of this months goals. These are the ones that run several food banks and shelters.

I get to their offices and did not expect what I find. There are a group of familiar people but they all look like they have bad news and do not know how to tell me. I look at them and put it simply.

“Whatever you have to say, just say it.”

The head of the organization is not here, the next in line is. He is the one that speaks.

“We have found out, while we were getting things ready for this meeting, the leader has disappeared with all of the charities money. He drained the account. Our treasurer found it out when he went to print out the financial report. There was just this note on the desk.

The note just said that he was tired of this and needed the money to start over. “Get that rich bastard to give you more money. He’s loaded”

“Have you gotten the police involved?”

He answers that they have but they do not know where he is at the moment.

“Don’t worry about the money, I am as he said a rich bastard. I want you and I to meet with the police. I will press charges but If he will return the money, all of it, I will recommend probation if he pleads guilty and goes public.”

I cover what he took and then we went to the police. With the local news there, the chief gave all the information about the theft. Then I made my information public. “I’m covering what he stole but if he turns himself in with all the money, I will ask the district attorney’s office to give him probation with the proviso that he never works again with any charity.”

Unfortunately, he did not. He was caught in one of the many casinos in the area. It turns out that he has been gambling with the charity money but this time he had gotten too deep to get out. When he was caught, he was on a roll. He had regained ten percent of what he took. He said that he had been into what little money of his he had.

The casino was the one to call. A security guard told the manager about the theft. The casino generously refunded us the amount he lost here but he had gambled at others. I pressed charges. He is now serving time.

The charity has gotten a surge of donations that is more than what they lost. Along with my replacement money, the food bank was able to get through the winter with a surplus.

Over the years, I have given away a lot. As I aged, my servants have had a retirement fund for each. For instance, when Michael was ready to retire, I had put away in his fund over two million. Most have between one and two million. None of them have to worry.

I still ride my motorcycle. Today is my sixtieth birthday and I go out for a leisurely ride. On that ride, I was just absorbed in the countryside. Enjoying the ride, I felt something that was familiar. Something I felt years ago.

Hesitating to look, there in my rearview was my busted up body. The deer got up and ran into the brush.