Chapter 1
Tom was the epitome of health. And if you observed him in the hallways of the clinic almost every day, you could swear he was visiting a sick relative, which was the most plausible reason for his constant presence there. Except that the sick relative was actually Tom. He should have bought for himself a bouquet of flowers and put it at the head of his own bed. Also, he could sidled up, next to the bouquet, a birthday card to celebrate the 100th hospital admission. Although his analysis was consistently perfect and rivaled that of an astronaut, for Tom the risk to ending up in the ICU after an unfortunate incident was ten times higher than for patients hooked up to the dialysis machine. Better to have no kidneys than to be healthy! Yes, he was inspiring you the allure of a competitive athlete and didn’t use the elevator at all when moving from one floor to another in the clinic, always preferring the stairs, which weren’t escalators and which required considerable effort to climb, as he was doing, but at the same time wondering if he’d ever get out of there alive. His worries was climbing the stairs faster than their owner. In fact, he had redacted his will... And at only 30 years of age!
He hadn’t had the courage to call on a random lawyer. He was afraid that he’d be declared insane for making such a bizarre request. Since the English people have no sense of humor, no one would have thought he was trying to be a joker, so the excuse “it was a joke” was out of the question. And whoever was put in a position to take Tom’s request seriously would end up questioning his state of mind. There was no way he’d come out safe and sound, after such a claim. And to sign a will, you really have to be in full possession of your faculties. So the problem wasn’t only a medical one, but also a legal one. Therefore he turned to a former high school classmate who had studied law and had a practice in London, just a few blocks from the mansion where he lived. Until then, they met occasionally and greeted each other with the casualness of people not professionally involved with each other. Not only was it very convenient to go to him, since he lived only a stone’s throw away, but he seemed the only suitable one, since they had known each other for years and he wouldn’t have mistaken him for a runaway from the psychiatric ward.
After setting up an appointment, he took his role as client seriously and, without further preamble ( such as reliving together the high school misadventures in a nostalgic manner), told the other that he wanted to officialize his will. But despite the fact that they were old acquaintances and their relationship had stood the test of time, it proved not to be an easy task to get the document, which in theory was just a standard form to fill out with his personal information - except that no one had ever put the number “30” as his age in that column.
The former colleague could not help himself and started to do a little detective work, but with a strict tact, constantly giving the impression that he was ready to become his lawyer and not the madhouse lawyer (although he was acting a bit duplicitous here). So he began to question him, as if to ask him if it would rain tomorrow, if he’d be blackmailed by someone - although he knew only too well that Tom was such a bohemian that he wouldn’t even have jumped into the breach to do dirty business, simply because he had no desire to do business, dirty or otherwise. However, he seemed compelled to make decisions against his own interests. So: why does he want to make his testament?! What could be the terrible reason that makes him take such a radical step?! Does he have cancer? Is the mafia after him? Is he trying to kill himself?
“A little bit of everything!“, Tom answered enigmatically. Then he began to elaborate, but in the same sibylline tone: “I don’t have cancer, but I could get leukemia at any moment. I’m not being hunted by the mafia, but I’ve fallen into the hands of equally dangerous people who don’t bother to put my feet in a bucket of wet cement and then throw me into the ocean but offer me 500 pounds as bait. So, under these conditions, even if I don’t want to kill myself, the 500 pounds drag me down worse than the cement bucket. Maybe I won’t die tomorrow, maybe I won’t die the day after tomorrow, but it’s a game of Russian roulette; my life can end at any moment”. The former colleague was dazzled, and his mouth remains hanging open in a stupid gape. In addition to writing the will, it would have been a good idea to move on to writing the obituary. So dramatic was the situation that the loss of his dear friend seemed imminent. In vain, Mother Nature had given him a body of steel, for which he, the lawyer, had envied him throughout high school; if now, behold, he comes with his tail between his legs and wants to leave his fortune to his mother, who is 60 years old! He expected to see him at any moment collapse and take his last breath. He had his hand on the small first-aid kit he kept in the drawer, just in case. However, he did not understand exactly what was hidden behind the abysmal attitude of the one who behaved like an old man with one foot in the grave. “A little bit of everything?! What do you mean by that?!“. Well, abandoning metaphors, Tom dared to call a spade a spade and utter the words that defined his life and eventual death: “I’m a human guinea pig!” He had never confessed this to his former colleague, even though they were friends. But his discretion was not surprising, considering that such is the nature of Englishmen. And if it’s a shameful job in the middle, then you keep absolute discretion, even if you’re not English!
