Insurance

Written 54-D27 [2022-11-08], Edited 54-F27 [2023-01-03]

Image credit: Twitter Twemoji

“So let me get this straight,” I asked my younger brother, Jason. “You had the form filled out?”

“Yes we filled them out together,” Jason responded, reminding me of that little incident.

“You live ten minutes away from the ServiceOntario office?” I asked Jason.

“Yeah I searched it up in Google Maps and everything,” Jason said.

“But you didn’t go?”

“I just didn’t feel like going to the office,” Jason said glumly.

While Jason stared at the floor a moment, I wiped a drop of blood off the elbow of my coat. I hope he didn’t see that.

“Will you feel like going to the office after your arm gets broken?” I asked. And I couldn’t help myself, the horrifying train of thought had already left the ghastly station.

Jason’s arm would be pretty simple to break.

“I think it’ll be okay, I’ve lived here for a year and haven’t gotten into any trouble.”

I noticed a suspicious gleam from my pant leg. My concealed pistol wasn’t quite concealed enough.

“Look Jason,” I said. “There’s a lot of danger in the world, and it would make me feel a lot better if you had health insurance.”

“You mean like a bus hitting me?” Jason asked.

“Sure, yeah,” I responded.

“I rarely leave the house anyway,” he said.

I couldn’t tell him the truth. I couldn’t tell him because it would put him, and me, in even more danger.

“Haven’t you heard of the organized crime in this city?” I asked Jason.

“But I just sit in my apartment and order in food from Uber,” he said. “Why would they be interested in little old me?”

Notes

This was written in 15 minutes during a Joy of Writing meetup.

Feedback from the Joy of Writing group

• don’t use adverbs too much: your setting and language and characterization should tell the story.
• “glumly”
• swifties: one line with adverb which is a pun