Joker is Wild

“Can you explain to me again, what exactly did he leave me?”

The stony-faced lawyer was trying to keep her composure. This whole job was beneath her. The deceased client that she represented was more than just a little “eccentric”—the media’s favorite word for men like him.

Interesting how rich men with weird collections get to be “eccentric” and poor women are just crazy old ladies who have too many, well, insert collected item here. It didn’t matter what it was, when women had a lot of it, it was deemed weird.

“It’s… as I said, Ms. Freitag. He left you his collection of Joker cards.”

April Freitag was not any less confused hearing it this time around.

“Joker cards… OK. And that’s referring to…” She couldn’t be hearing this right.

“Exactly as it sounds Ms. Freitag,” heavy sigh, “Joker cards. As in the joker card of a deck of cards.”

It wasn’t making more sense. “He collected playing cards?”

“Just the jokers. Now, I need you to sign this to acknowledge the receipt of the bequeathed ite-”

“I though you said he was like, crazy rich?” April was still trying to get this stone-faced lady to stop messing with her.

“This is correct, Ms. Freitag. Your great uncle owned quite a large sum of money and a number of properties.”

“And he left me joker cards?”

The conversation was a bit circular. She knew this even as she continued but she just couldn’t stop.

The last few days have been an absolute whirlwind. Between finding out she had a rich relative and that he died, learning of an inheritance, turning her whole life and schedule upside down to get to New York to accept the inheritance… She was tired. Just drained emotionally, physically, mentally… financially…

“I had to take off work and buy a plane ticket to get here. What is going to happen to the money that he’s leaving behind?”

“It seems,” the lawyer flipped through some documents looking for the information, “that he is leaving quite a bit to a charity for zombie apocalypse preparation that, upon further research, seems to do a lot of funding for natural disaster relief and preparation, and not… funding the zombie apocalypse as your uncle was led to believe.”

She finished this sentence with the sobriety and monotonous tone that only a high-paid lawyer would be able to pull off in this situation.

“Like, he thought it protected people from zombies?” What a weird guy.

“No, he assumed that they were funding the apocalypse itself. I am not sure what he thought that meant based on this document. Maybe he thought they were coming up with the virus, I don’t know.” The stone was cracking. She was tired.

“Ok. Whatever, I’ll sign.”

Surely her millionaire uncle wasn’t just collecting worthless cards. They were probably some rare cards from medieval times or something else that a rich person would invest in. She’ll figure out what she’s meant to do with the collection later.

“Looks like we’ll be staying.”

She arrived in her Chicago apartment late that same night.

Her cat stared mournfully back at her as if he could understand. Lord Tubby Butt was usually pretty solemn but it seemed appropriate at the moment.

When the box— no, actually, boxes—arrived she brought them in to examine her inheritance. It was exactly what she expected. Joker cards.

An assortment of the classic design with some novelty ones mixed in. She saw one that seemed to be death themed, with the black and white drawing of a joker with a skull face. He was holding a scythe while balancing on a much larger skull.

Normally she would have thought the artwork was kind of cool, but among all of the jokers smiling manically up from the box, the toothy grin of the reaper-styled joker was giving her the creeps.

“This is a job for future April,” she told Lord Tubby as she closed the box back up to head to her kitchenette for some ramen. Her comfort show and some sweats were calling her name.

The next morning April woke up groggily. She had fallen asleep before the first episode of FRIENDS was even over. She was still exhausted from her spur of the moment New York trip and she had been waking up unhappily all week.

“MMMMMMM” she groaned as she reached for her nightstand to grab her phone.

Her notifications bar was full at the top. Missed calls, texts, WhatsApp messages… It seemed like every point of contact on her phone had its icon listed in her notifications.

She started with the messages, reading one from her coworker and best friend, Joel Colins.

Wya?

sick today?

April fr answer ur phone wtf!

They kept going. She looked at the date and time stamps of the messages. The first one said Monday, 9:05 am. Wait, what?

Today’s Monday.

She checked the day on her phone.

Wednesday.

“What the actual… Did I go into a coma?”

She got up. Lord Tubby was under the bed. She looked over at his scratch post and saw that it had been torn to shreds. He had chewed relentlessly on it. The door had scratches where he had tried to claw out of the room.

“Oh my God, Tubs, I’m so sorry, baby!”

She tried to console him but he wouldn’t come out from under the bed. She couldn’t blame him for being angry and scared. What happened to her?

Quickly she opened the bedroom door to get the cat some food.

She made it almost halfway through the living room toward the little counter, sink, and fridge that served as her kitchen and froze.

What was she looking at? Future April, who was now past April that she hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting, had sure been busy.

Staring back at April from every angle she looked, were jokers. She spun around. Grinning and laughing. Their grins on every surface in her living room. They were wallpapered on the walls and ceiling. In her lost days, she must have pulled up her carpet and glued them to the floor.

She spun and spun. Her eyes rolled from grin to grin. She grinned…

She grinned. She grinned.

She grinned.

Joel sat in a stuffy office and tried to check back into what was being said to him.

“…Apparently she hadn’t even unpacked them before she passed. They think she must have had some sort of brain aneurysm.” The lawyer was much too calm, “Well, she must have known something was going to happen because she hired me to write this will for her the day before.”

“And she’s leaving me with, what now?”

“Joker cards, Mr. Colins.”