Jeffery Goldthorpe

Living Will

Josh sat down on the old wooden chair. It creaked a little under his solid frame but bore his weight stoically. His one remaining grandmother had chosen to move out of the farmhouse to move in with him and Debra. His twin uncles who ran the farm now had never married and thus had no-one to help look after their mother during the day when she might need a little assistance while they were out busy getting things done in the paddock. Josh, in his forties now and carrying a little more weight than he should was taking what he felt was a well-earned break after a couple of hours shifting some of the heavier items out to the van. Most of the stuff was staying of course but Grandma Lucy had insisted on taking her favourite leather armchair, some crockery, what had to be an antique pure ebony, glass-fronted display cabinet containing a multitude of family photographs and a record player she claimed still worked. Josh had taken the time for a quick cuppa downstairs before opting to tackle the monumental task of packing up all the old lady's library of books. Library was the right word Josh reckoned. The ceiling wasn't all that high up here in the attic. The highest point had to be just slightly above his own modest height of 175 cm. From the roof trees it sloped down sharply to a point only a couple of metres away where there was a single bed, from which presumably you could lay back and stare up at the faded blue paint overhead. There was a narrow cupboard for clothing and a small washstand but the rest of the wall space was taken up with floor to ceiling shelving covered with row upon row of books. Josh was sitting in the only chair with a couple of packing boxes at his feet. "Well," he thought, "better get to it."