I heard the sirens. I was dying, but not sad. I was not alone. Three of us had been sucking in carbon monoxide instead of oxygen for a long while—me, my lawyer (a hack who wasn’t arguing very smartly for my share of common property) and my soon-to-be Ex, Jim, a fool acting as his own lawyer.
Before Jim passed out completely he cursed me as I smiled at him.
The emergency crew whisked me to the hospital, sirens blaring. While my lungs and brain fought to keep me alive, a lanky police detective visited. “Your husband, Jim, and your lawyer didn’t make it. They’re gone.”
Overnight, I worked hard to hold on to life, there was one more thing I wanted to hear. The next morning, as my body began to surrender to the depredations of the lack of oxygen. the detective returned. “Sorry to tell you we found your husband’s prints on the CO2 hose hooked into the conference room’s ventilation system.”
I smiled. The detective looked puzzled. I guess he hadn’t seen too many people smiling as they lay dying. The lawyer and Jim dying first meant that my sister wouldn’t have to fight Jim’s greedy relatives to inherit everything. His prints on the hose were my insurance that if Jim survived, he’d die in jail. I knew I’d be gone soon anyway. From the time I entered the room just two days after my stage four diagnosis of lung cancer developed due to Jim’s smoking, I knew I was dying. Jim and the lawyer were gone now too—dead and in hell before me. Gone.
Joan Leotta – Author, Story Performer
“Encouraging words through Pen and Performance”
Most recent Short story published: The Confession in issue 88 Yellow Mama
Books in Print: Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, Finishing Line Press; Morning by Morning and Dancing Under the Moon, two free mini-chapbooks are at https://www.origamipoems.com/poets/257-joan-leotta Gifts of Nature, free chapbook on http://stanzaicstylings.blogspot.com/p/gifts-of-nature-twenty-poems-by-joan.html
Punk Noir Press 