Article Snippet: “The completed documents were neatly reassembled, bound with twine and placed in a large, translucent, accordian-style document folder.”
“Survivor’s Remorse” (Flash Fiction)
Joel’s girlfriend “Chickee” called me at 3:30am. She had forgotten her key and couldn’t get Joel to let her in.
Like many times in the past, Joel was sleeping too soundly to hear Chickee’s knocking and yelling at the front door.
I drove over and using my key, we both entered the house.
In the few hours since I saw Joel, he had finished all the legal paperwork that designated me, his only living friend, as both the executor and sole beneficiary of his estate.
The completed documents were neatly reassembled, bound with twine and placed in a large, translucent, accordian-style document folder.
“Ready For Lawyer” in thick, red magic marker letters was handwritten on the front and back of the folder.
It was the first thing Chickee and I saw when we entered the house, placed squarely on the coffee table in the living room.
In the den, we found Joel in his usual, perfectly ensconced, supine position in the vintage Lazy Boy recliner.
His reading glasses were askew and ready to fall off his nose.
A paperback novel was on his chest. His special bookmarker, a photo of his son, was sticking out from the top of the book.
He had the most serene — almost angelic — expression on his face that I’d ever seen.
And selfishly, I was really angry at him!
Why?
Because Joel — the closest friend I ever had — was dead.
By JaiChai
(Excerpted from: Knights from the Sacred Order of the Bar Stool — “The Reprobate and The Hobbit” — JaiChai 2018. Revised 12–8–2020.)
Originally published at https://hive.blog on December 8, 2020.
