Shhh! Scribbler at Work

Egress Extempore

(prompt: 'spontaneous' 1/6/2018)

Despite any personal feelings about the verdict, and as in all other aspects of death and dying, the Coroner's Report for the official Death Certificate quite coldly stated:

'The frozen body of the deceased was not revealed until several months after its actual fall from the fifth floor window of Fathomlee Lodge, following melting of the heaviest snowfalls of the season. The body, having being entombed in a solid block of ice, allowed forensic tests to unequivocally establish the initial cause of death to be a health issue causing loss of control and balance.

At first there had been a degree of discord as to the cause of the balance disorder, when several possibilities had been forthcoming. A head injury was first proposed, but the one sustained had occurred as a result of the fall, not as a cause. Next, the potential side-effects of some medications causing dizziness and loss of some of the sensibilities were ruled out as the deceased was vehemently opposed to chemical intervention of any kind, and had not partaken of any medication for decades.

Although blood circulation disorders could not be discounted, neither could they be proven to have resulted in the deceased pitching over the balcony to meet his death impaled on a spike of the garden railing below. Consequently, a verdict of Death by Misadventure is legally and irrevocably declared.' Although a collective shudder ran through the assembled courtroom occupants, there was a general, sad nodding of heads in agreement.

Though the lips of Doris, his widow, quivered almost uncontrollably, it was not (as most thought) in sorrow for the loss and tragedy and horror of his final demise. It was not even a reaction to the irony that the verdict agreed with her evidence that Warwick had been complaining for several days about vague earache and the odd moments of vertigo. To be painfully honest, it was not actually grief at all. It was spontaneous joy, tightly hidden, but threatening to bubble over. Her revenge was sweet on the bozo who'd called her the most expensive 'Miss Adventure' of his life.

Who'd have thought the final verdict would be the actual words he had flung uncaringly at her? Who'd have thought one day she'd have EVERYTHING... except him! She tucked her head tightly down into her neck to stop the rising chuckle, as she thanked God for the 'macho man' bravado that had made the self-proclaimed 'wonderful' Warwick climb atop the balcony rail to spread his arms and declare himself King of the World. As she pretended to kiss his feet, it had taken only the tiniest of pushes to send him to meet his Maker.

Doris took the opportunity to congratulate herself on the heavy veiling swathing her hat and the complexly embroidered lace-edged handkerchief she used to hold over the near-uncontrollable twitching of the edges of her lips as a remembered truism ran through her brain in a tireless refrain -

Behind every good man there's an even better woman, rolling her eyes.