# _Ziddunnit_ ## Prologue: Instructions "Choox? Quick call with Nic?" Meredith stands from the table and starts heading towards the coat rails at the back of the hall. She's addressing her husband, Charles -- 'Choox' only to her, unless their friends are being sarcastic -- and the Nic she's referring to is Nicotine, a call with whom was their long-ago burnt parental code for a smoke. Or, these days, a vape. Charles gets up, puts on the jacket hanging off the back of the his chair. There's a reflex adjustment of the alignment of the collar, his hands travel half to his neck before they realise the tie is in his pocket, then he heads out of the hall. He detours to wash his hands and soon joins Mer on a bench, outside the Blankham social club reserved for the funeral dinner, looking over what she squints in the darks are probably cricket grounds, not football ones. She takes a bong-calibre hit on what she has the grace not to call her rig, an intimidating near-cyberpunk, large bore e-cigarette, tilts her head back and lets out a plume more suited to a Victorian rail engine than a 44 year old mother of three. He's pulled out an equally science fiction vape, but he's more into short, repeated puffs. He's a year older, and does something long hours, high-earning in company audit and consulting, incomprehensible and/or pointless to his friends, and, as he at times idly wonder, maybe himself. Much less serious at home than he is at work. She's a science teacher, and for her it's the same, or the other way round, depending on class and period. They're only central to this functionally, Charles being the oldest friend - they met in year 6 - and the executor of the will. "I'm not asking you to tell them, I'm asking you to tell me when you're going to tell them", says Meredith. She was, after all, explicitly mentioned in the will as the executor's auditor, tasked with making sure he saw it through. She like how Billy wrote that this would happen anyway, but he was putting it in writing to make sure she knew he very much wanted it so. The dynamics of their couple was always plain for their friends to see, though hearing them laid out by a solicitor reading a will was a first. "Tell them what?" Enters, or actually exits, the hall, an actual Nicholas, except in many of his circles no one calls him that, but Tur, short for Turbler, his last name. He doesn't smoke, nor vape, but he has a phone call to make, a habit, if not nearly as bad, certainly as consequent. He's over from the US for this, and much as its good to see the old gang, the jet lag is killing him. He's a year older than them, and hasn't seen them in the flesh since his wedding to the American woman responsible for his expatriation. Met the gang senior year of high school,. "Billy left something for us to do. Charles is to tell you." Mer says. Charles snaps "I don't have to. It's conditional. 'if there is doubt'. There's no..." he takes a small puff. "I don't accept there's doubt. Actually, doing this would _create_ doubt." Mer has already had the argument, when Charles did not want to even take the letter, so she knows no good can come of re-hashing it. Instead, she can now make an actual demonstration. "Let's see!" She says, noticing and hating the 'let's find out' science teacher in her voice. She turns on the bench towards Tur, and the oversize down jacket she's wearing over her *not-slutty* black dress (black dresses falling, for Mer, into two distinct categories) squeaks on the back's wooden slats. "Do you think Billy killed himself?" "MER!" The shout is paternal, outraged, as if protesting in the name of decency itself. Tur and Mer pointedly ignore Charles. "I dunno." Tur spins his basketball player frame, leans his buttocks on the back of the bench. "The one I knew would've. But then I left, what, eighteen years ago - haven't kept in touch much with him in the interim." He pauses, then quickly adds "Wish I had, now. Obviously." There's a beat, but just as Tur's about to start again, the door wooshes open, and since they all turn to see who's opened it, Zoe, seeing them takes a single step forward, throws her arms out, cocks her hips and freezes the pose: "Damn right, bitches - it's the Zoo!" She walks up to the bench "Hey you! I'm glad you came up!" she says, hugging Tur. She twirls around the bench, plonks herself down with theatrical relief, then proceeds to pull out a tobacco pouch, skins, and filters, the parapharnelia of the smoker who likes her vice to also involve arts and crafts. "Hadn't you gone electric?" Charles offers, extremely keen for the previous conversation not to resume. "Oh, I had, I've had to switch to smokes to get off the vape." Zoe deadpans. "Very good" Charles offers a chuckle he hopes doesn't sound as forced to the others as it does to him. "Not joking." She absorbs herself in her craft. Tur is watching the stars. Charles is watching Zoe fashion a regulation 6mm-gauge roll-up as perfect a cylinder has can be made by hand, finding, in this, cause for some fascination. Mer is watching her husband. "You guys were talking about how he jumped, right?", Zoe pops the cig at the corner of her mouth. Mer and Tur explode in laughter and released tension. Charles is looking pale; he starts stammering: "But she's like Tur, when was the last time she saw him?" He squirms on the bench, wishing he'd brought his coat. "Old Billy would have jumped. We all know that. Actually, I think we can now safely say we're all fucking surprised old Billy managed not to jump for long enough to eventually mature." He gets up, not sure where this latest comment really came from, or as he realises is what truly worries him, how long it had been in there. "Turn into New Billy?" Asks Tur. It's unclear if it's a quip or an actual question in his tone, so he only realise after he's not sure how he meant it. "Who... fell-question-mark?", he upspeaks, realising in the moment it sounds like he's deriding the option he was trying to endorse. "It doesn't matter whether they're wrong or not. That's clearly *doubt*." Meredith softens the latest because she knows there's no point aggravating her beloved husband now she's once again, simply led him to have no choice but concede. This is a purely practical consideration, not a concern for his ego. Zoo is somehow already halfway through her cigarette, so she parks it at the corner of her mouth and starts rolling the next one, though when given the choice she immediately takes two filters and two papers out, berating herself as she'll end up smoking three instead of two had she done that in the first place. Whatever. Special occasion. Tur thinks he can see the Big Dipper, which would make the North Star riiight behind this branch up.... here. They both know a Charles and Mer confrontation, like many a tantrum, simply needs a bit of time, and never causes much meaningful damage. As far as they've witnessed. "Could the two of you tell my husband to grow a pair, and do his duty as executor of Billy's will?" She's come to think of this kind of masculinity questioning as the 'Lady M move', though doesn't quite realise she only wields it at a specific intersection of the balance of the conversation, and her degree of fatigue at this point in time. But she's definitely wondered if her phone, or the systems behind it, have found a specific pattern. "Fine." Charles is doing is mock-strangled *if-you-must* tone which is recognised only by his wife as the start of one of is sulk-to-charm turns, before the next sentence signals it to all. "It's a lot of responsibility, you know, Mer, a pair of balls", he says in a chagrined, dignified, near statesmanlike voice. Near straining under the weight of the responsibility. "...more like the electrocutor of Bill's Willy!" heckles Zoe. "...erector?" offers Tur. "...Thank you! I knew there was a better one. More like the _erector_... \- Zoe, please." Charles's deadpans in his best boardroom tone. He pulls an envelope out of his jacket inner pocket. This sobers him instantly. "Billy..." A pause, he takes a deep inhale and lets his right big toe worry what has just become a hole in his sock. "Billy had some specific instructions if there ever was doubt as to whether his death was an accident or ..." the pause is microscopic, imperceptible, deniable, even, as he often pauses before the last word of a sentence for emphasis, but he has been preparing for the word, preparing to get it out fluently and now he is even worried, truth be told, he may be rushing it out "..suicide." He then adds quickly: "A... game." "Oh my god?. From beyond the grave?" Zoe declames in mock wonder. "Jesus christ, how fucking. typical." She's started to wonder if she is hamming up the grieving resentment, maybe because of the way her very entrance has framed the interaction as a performance, she'll later further wonder, or if she has real reason to be real angry. The second cigarette is done, so she uses it to light up the third one. Burns her finger. "Cunt" She's simultaneously aware of a sense of causality, yet will remember her tongue having formed the 'c' before she burnt herself. "It's not like that Zoo. It's... a ritual." Mer is conciliatory. She's read the letter. It is fucking typical, she agrees, that part is fair enough. "A _ritual_ ? He's left _instructions_ for his friends to do a _ritual_? What, jumping off a cliff wasn't self-centred _enough_, was it?" It feels good to let the venom out, whether it's deserved or not. "Don't say that. We don't _know_ that." Charles says, not looking at Zoe. He is starting to feel the cold without a coat, and stand on each leg shaking the other to warm up. "Sorry to interrupt." says Tur, a finger up. Zoe turns round, gives him a sorry look, then realises the tears are coming. She turns back and buries her face in her hands. He shoulders quake. Tur turns around, takes a knee. Wraps his harms around her "No, but, Zoo... I thought it was possible, but then I learnt he walked this path, like, weekly, or near as, and that... I mean it's gotta be an accident, right? He was all right, as far as you all knew?" Meredith puts a hand on his arm "Boo, you're getting ahead of the thing. That's the point. I called it a ritual, cause it'll act as one... an activity, if you prefer, Zoe. He's left us instructions - suggestions, I guess, it's up to each, but, if we want to help each other resolve the question, he suggested we take turn each putting in secret estimates" "from -100 to +100, with the negative being deliberate." offers Charles. "Obviously he specified that, dunno why not simply 1 to 10." "..because 1 to 10 is actually 9 levels. Also which way is ten? Let's follow the rules properly if we're doing this." "_rules_" scoffs Zoe. "I know, ironic, right?" says Tur. "..and then the most extreme votes each put forward their case, first to go drawn by coin flip. Then round-table discussion, Then we do the secret estimates again, repeat until we reach consensus." finishes Mer. "I mean you weren't wrong, Zoo, it is typical Billy." There a silence, and Charles now regrets having stood up only to let Mer actually deliver the thing, and it feels weird to read the letter now, so he simply holds it towards Zoe, who puts her face back in her hands in response, then to Tur, who picks it up eagerly. It's a quick read though, and Tur is already asking "okay, but then... I mean does it mean we go back in there and go 'hey, who has doubt Bill fell by accident and would like to play high school debate club about it in the smoker's corner?' Are we gonna involve everyone?" "Oh, right, yeah, so what you're holding is the really the pitch page. There are a couple of page of further clauses in appendices" says Charles. "This is so dumb" says Zoe, not entirely without tenderness. Charles and Meredith look at each other. "This isn't dumb, _you're dumb_", they say simultaneously. "He did call it" says Mer. "Not a hard one though", points out Charles. "What?" Zoe is confused. "Billy left a clause that if you are - not just anyone, but you personally, to call this dumb, we needed to respond this." Says Meredith. "I've not spent as long on the appendices as Charles but this one I do remember." Zoe eyes are wide and shiny. "You are joking" "uh-uh, look, top of that page. forty-seven" Charles is holding out the printout. "'47. If Zoe, at any point during the process, bracket, to be understood as spanning disclosure to consensus, close bracket, calls any aspect of it dumb, she must be told "This isn't dumb, _you're_ dumb' - this is d.. daft... what a.." "Keep reading", points out Charles. "'... she must be told 'this isn't dumb, _you're_ dumb, ideally by as many people as possible, this clause benefiting from advance distribution to other participants left to the executor's discretion." She reads in increasing disbelief. "oh, so he's trolled me from beyond the grave, that's... cunty" she said cute, she's sure she said cute "What else has brostradamus forecast? She shall be wearing black? Fuck you, this is anthracite!" and very much _not_-not-slutty, thinks Meredith before she's even noticed. "Seriously, keep reading." repeats Charles. "This is Billy. This is why there's pages of that. And pages." Zoe sighs, resumes: "'and, since I am sure Zoe will sooner or later want to check this clause herself, I love you, Zoo, but this is not dumb, *you're* dumb.'" She looks up from the page. Notices everyone looking at her. expectantly as if she should be ... what, _pleased?_ "So this prick, this... selfish little dick thinks that it will recomfort me to read this after he's done... that?" There's the kind of silence that feels sticky, as if it's difficult to move from. "To be fair, he did forecast that you would cry, that Tur would do something cute like say sorry to interrupt or look at the stars, that I would end up organising everything like a teacher, and that Charles would have, and I quote, 'one of his _nervous shits_'." Mer un-sticks, somewhat skillfully. "What?" Charles is outraged. More for lack of having spotted this himself. "87 - last page. " Charles is checking "Yeah, I guess I kinda zoned out in the last pages. He also wrote we'll likely be outside because of all the vaping." "Ha!" Zoe feels vindicated. "I'm smoking, screw your divination." She flicks a V at the sky. The sky doesn't react. Tur remembers he did not get an answer: "...so do we need to go back in there and recruit anyone with doubts as to whether this was an actual accident? I don't particularly fancy making the pitch to his parents...." "yeah, so, of course... _of course_ he thought of *that* too", Charles makes a vague gesture "I mean, yeah, here's no limit to how many doubters we can find. The plan..." he is not liking the word, so tries again "the design... the *intention* is to do this once, in person, with a limited group, then put the instructions up on the memorial website, along with out consensus probability and final stance. Then anyone with doubts - which, and I want to register this eplicitly, will include people who weren't doubting *before* they see it there - can engage in the g... the process." "How limited?" Zoe is inventoring the contents of her tobacco pouch. "Can we get another smoker? I didn't stock up for an evening of deathly debating." Mer elbows her "silly cow." "Again, not joking." She realises the limiting factor is likely to be filters, not tobacco; she could roll them conical, to maximise, which reminds her she could even go with the 2-skin, L-shape design, something she'd last rolled when she was, like, sixteen, and that even Billy had superseded with king size papers. Still, if we're doing a night of high school debate club, suicide edition, with the high school friends of the high school stoner kid, feels appropriate. "I think the four of us is what he would have... " Charles dodges the cliché, but by barely a hair. ".. had in mind. He's listed a number of people who shouldn't be included, so, Tur, you wouldn't haave had to make that pitch to his parents anyway. He's also listed those who _must_ be involved, and, well, no surprise, this set is just us." "Right, let's do it, then. First, I need a piss, through" Tur says. "And I need to fetch my coat." Charles starts walking towards the door. "I need a drink." Zoe gets up and joins them. Meredith is still on the bench, right arm over its backed, turned towards the other. She lets out a double plume of glycol vapour through her nose. "I need..." she pauses. "What I need is Billy back, but failing that, a drink's the next best" "Vodka and tonic?" asks Zoe. The double is so heavily implied it does not deserve voicing. "Sure. Easy on the tonic." ---