Please Send Fruit

He had not been expecting a letter. The phone call two days ago had not come as a surprise, he was still trying to fully come to terms with the short conversation.

-Hello

-Is this Josh?

-Speaking.

-I'm sorry to call you like this. Sean is dead.

He wondered at his own impulse to make her feel better, and just as soon realized there was no way. He had tried to sound grieved, but with a growing panic he had realized that he was relieved, that without knowing he had been waiting for this call for two years, that he could not feel the way he knew he should. He had expected the call, but the letter, he had not expect that.

Walking through his apartment to the bedroom he tried to remember the last time Sean had been there, but he couldn't. Sean had spent so much time there that at some point he had joked that he should start charging rent. It had to be at least four years ago, before everything fell apart.

He got his best suit from the closet, his only black suit, wanting to make sure it was OK for the funeral, but finding it impossible to not let his mind slip backwards to that day two years ago, the day he realized that Sean would die.

He was on the bus, late for work, when Sean had got on. In the crowded bus, none of them had realized what was happening in time to slip behind that guilty wall of pretending not to see each other. Before either of them knew, they were standing face to face, and the years that had passed since the last time had seemed magnified by the sudden meeting.

It was not Sean's broken body that had stunned him. The numbing shock that had stayed with him since was seeing that the man he had once admired and envied at the same time, the boy with the almost unlimited potential, could no longer meet his eye as he delivered his life lies without conviction.

-I'm going to go away for a while, get things straightened out, get a handle on things.

He had walked away that day, knowing it was just a matter of time, hating himself for not doing anything, hating Sean for making him feel that way. Now Sean had proved him right, he told himself it was better that way.

Yesterday he was angry, furious even. Everybody knew then, one of their old school mates called and told him.

-Did you hear it?! He did it himself. Got a gun and blew his fucking brains out!

He had been disgusted, disgusted at the twisted excitement in the voice of the messenger. Disgusted at the tickling excitement in the back of his neck at the obscene news, before the anger came. How could Sean have done this to his family? To the people who cared about him? How could he do it to me? The anger was safe, it was proper, it was the perfect way to keep himself from knowing how the suicide had really made him feel. He had been angry then, but that was before he had got the letter.

He had not expected the letter, who could? He read it again, and again was struck by how appropriately inappropriate it all was

Esteemed friend

It is my pleasure to invite you to my funeral.

Please check with my family for time and location

Sincerely, Sean

Please don't send flowers to the family,

send fruit.

He put the simple paper note in his pocket, who else would take the time to write invites to their own funeral before ending their own life? The fact that Sean had sat down and thought of him, written him a letter, and still killed himself seconds later had hurt and angered him at first, but as always, it was impossible to stay mad at Sean. Sean always lived on his terms, never through or for anybody else, he never apologized, and now he had died as he had lived. Broken and ruined by the poison in his body, but still with both middle fingers raised in defiant salute to all convention. Only Sean.

He noticed that his suit pants needed to be dry cleaned, and he needed to order a fruit basket for tomorrow. Moving on with life seemed strangely absurd, but what else is there to do? He should have expected that letter.