My grandpa was a miserable old fart.

It’s not the nicest thing to say, I know. But he really wasn’t a likable guy.

When he was alive, every family member dreaded their weekend with him. He had a nurse, but on weekends, he couldn’t find any help. Only one nurse has ever even stayed by his side for longer than a month or two. And this one nurse needed weekends off. So, every weekend, the family took turns to take care of him. Or, in his words, be a pain in his butt.

To be fair, he didn’t intentionally seek out issues, or at least, I don’t think he did. He just found many, many things annoying, and seemed incapable of letting anything go. He would have to point out whatever chafed him, and cuss the offender out.

And that was also how he died. Before he died, I often wondered how he even made it that far in life. How no one has beat him up before, or at least punched him in the face. I always assumed it was because he was an old, frail looking man. No one wants to be seen wailing on an old man quaking on his walking stick. How he survived to the day he got old, I don’t know. But one day, someone didn’t give a damn. Someone didn’t care that he was a helpless old man who was obviously half off his rocker. Someone got mad, really mad. Someone pulled a knife and stabbed him, multiple times.

No one in the family was truly surprised, I think. Don’t get me wrong. Despite him being a tough old bastard to get along with, I was fond of him. He was a cantankerous old grump, but he had a good heart. Buried somewhere beneath all the angst and fury, he had some pretty solid values. He never went out of his way to make trouble for others, unprovoked. Not that I witnessed, anyway. As much as possible, he made sure that he did not create inconveniences or trouble for others, not at first. After they had inconvenienced or troubled him, well, that was a different story.

On my weekends with him, he would insist on staying home the entire time, and would insist on ordering in and paying for it himself. I always suspected that that was because I didn’t have a car and couldn’t drive, so he didn’t want me to spend money booking rides for him. Whenever family members who drove and had cars spent time with him, he would definitely insist on heading out, as much as possible. He would also order only vegetarian food, though he loves his meat. He insisted it was for his health, but I knew it was so that I, the vegetarian, could enjoy every dish with him.

So, don’t get me wrong. While I’m not surprised that he got attacked, I’m incensed. If they ever let that murderer out of jail, I’ll hunt him down myself. There’s no excuse for stabbing a hapless old man to death, even if he did insult you and your mother for poor familial upbringing. I mean, the dude stabbed him to death. Obviously grandpa wasn’t wrong about the poor upbringing.

I’m in charge of cleaning his place up. I volunteered, actually. The weekend he died, it was supposed to be my weekend. But I had been in a foul mood, over some stupid work stuff that shouldn’t have mattered so much. So I swapped weekends with my uncle, and that was why grandpa was out that weekend. That was why grandpa had gotten angry when the man sitting on the bench by the diner had refused to budge to make space for grandpa to take a seat while waiting for my uncle to be back. That was why grandpa had started yelling at the man, calling him an entitiled asshole with a shit attitude. And that his mother had failed to bring him up properly.

And that was why grandpa got stabbed. Why he died. Why my uncle came back from the car two blocks away, where my grandpa had sent him to get his scarf, to find my grandpa bleeding out on the street.

I thought that taking on as much responsibility for his post-death matters would help ease the guilt, but it didn’t. Looking at the familiar furniture, trinkets and clothes that were now abandoned, I couldn’t help but feel a tight knot in the bottom of my stomach.

I don’t think I’ve cried once since he died. I received his news like it was about someone else. Someone else’s grandpa. A switch within me flipped, and it felt like something died in me. All I could do was rely on my rational thinking and do whatever was needed. I couldn’t seem to feel the pain or the sadness.

But my stupid feelings or lack thereof aside, packing his things turned out to be easier than I thought. Grandpa was the opposite of a hoarder. He threw out things without sentimentality, and everything was arranged neatly, in ways that made categorical sense. Even in death, he seemed intent on not imposing on others, as much as he could help it.

The only thing on his desk was a journal, and a pen. That was it.

I sat down at the desk, and looked at the pages that lay open. I felt a twinge of guilt about peeking at his private thoughts, but it quickly dispersed with the thought that well, he was gone. A dead man can’t mind.

The pages left open seemed to be the end part of a journal entry. I flipped a couple pages forward, then felt a ripple of surprise.

“Hey Stuffy,” the entry began. Stuffy was grandpa’s nickname for me. Because I’m, well, stuffy. I’m known as the uptight one in the family, and I tend to be…less than receptive to ideas not in line with my own.

But also, because I loved stuffed toys, and he used to buy many of them for me.

So, my grandpa’s last journal entry was addressed to me. I sat back in his chair, feeling more than a little disconcerted. I knew he was fond of me, as much as he was able to be fond of others, but I didn’t think it was to the point that his last note would be addressed to me. More importantly, it seemed like he had somehow known that he was going to die. Unless he always addressed his journal entries to someone? I flipped back through the pages, but this was the only one where he started with a greeting to anyone.

My eyes traced through the rest of his last journal entry.

“I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just spit it out. Decades ago, when I was around your age, I had a friend who was a fortune teller. Stupid, ain’t it? I thought she was a quack, but an interesting one, so we hung out at times. Fucking mistake, knowing that Sally.

“I didn’t ask for it, but she ruined my fucking life and made it a living hell on earth. That woman called me in the middle of the night one goddamn night, and told me that she had a vision about me. I hung up, pissed that she would wake me for that shit. But she called again. And I answered, for some stupidass reason.

“That was when she told me the thing that poisoned the rest of my life. I was going to die by suicide, she said. That was how I would die. It was destined, she said.

“I didn’t believe her, of course. Not at first. She was good at fortune telling, but I thought I knew how she scammed others. Reading microexpressions, researching backgrounds, noting tones of voices, etc. So I told her to go to hell.

“But Sally was relentless. She wanted to help me out, she said. She wanted to make me believe so that I would know what to look out for. To know to be careful. To be careful of myself. That dumb bitch.

“So she told me about 7 separate events that would happen, that she had visions about over the past 2 years. She had jotted them down in this stupid little notebook of hers, and showed it to me.

“Every damn thing came true. Shit like someone’s bird dying. A friend getting into an accident while overseas. Hell, she even predicted when a tree would fall and crush a jogger.

“I asked her what I could do. She told me there was nothing I could do, but just to hold onto my sanity and will to live, that I needed to fight any thoughts of suicide as much as possible. But my death will be by suicide, she said. It was inescapable, but perhaps delayable, she said.

“You know how I’ve lived life so far. The junk food I eat when you’re not around. The crap I yell at the world. The shitty moods. You know how I’ve lived to be this old? To a goddamn 103 years old? Because I can’t die. Not by any other means. I can only die by suicide.

“Knowing this fact has royally fucked up my life. How the fuck do you enjoy and live a motherfucking zen life knowing that you’re destined, by some higher fucking authority, to die by self-murder?

“But I’ve refused to cave, all these damn years. No matter how shitty things got, I never once considered suicide, purely out of spite. ‘Cause fuck the universe. They want me dead by my hand? It would be the last thing I ever do. Though to be fair, no matter what, that would be the last thing I’d do. But you get it, kid?

“I would never have done it, never have ever given in. I would have lived to a thousand just to spite the universe. Spite fate.

“But Stuffy, I’m losing my mind. I’m forgetting stuff. I get confused sometimes. I know you probably couldn’t tell. It’s not a big deal yet, and I could probably get by a few more months before anyone notices anything. After all, and old man is bound to be forgetful at times, yea?

“But I woke up yesterday, and realised that I couldn’t remember Darlie. Your grandma. I woke up, saw our photo on the nightstand, and for a moment, I didn’t know who the hell she was. Stuffy, I could put up with anything. The world has thrown me a tonne of shit but I’ve never buckled. But I cannot forget your grandma. I cannot become someone who didn’t remember the love of his life. The one person who put up with all his shit and brought rainbows into this shitty damn shit world.

“So Stuffy, tomorrow, when you’re here, I’ll ask to go out. You’d probably find it odd, but I doubt you’d refuse. I’ll be provoking the shit out of the meanest, most unhinged person I know. I’ll talk shit, throw shit if need be, until he beats the life out of me.

“That’s about as suicidal as I can get, Stuffy, I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t do it myself, can’t cave that far and kill myself. We’ll be heading to my favourite diner tomorrow, Stuffy, and I’ll be making this fucker really mad. I won’t even feel bad about his murder charges, this asshole is a known gangbanger and drug dealer. The waitresses at the diner are terrified of him, whenever he gets off that damn bench and into the place to demand food for free. Word on the street is that he’s already killed before. Cops just couldn’t get him. People tiptoe around that asshole like their lives depend on it. So don’t feel bad for him, Stuffy. Now, my only problem is how to get you out of the way while I provoke the shit out of him.

“I know you, Stuffy, you’re gonna blame yourself for being away. For not being by my side while it happens. So I’m writing this here, stating this clear as day. I did this on fucking purpose. I miss Darlie, I am not losing my mind and staying alive as a shell of a person. I’m fulfilling my fucking destiny. It’s not your fault. I would have found a way no matter what you did. Aight?

“Take care, Stuffy. You’re a good kid. I love you and all that sappy stuff.”

And that was it. I sat that in a shocked silence, staring at the pages, my mind whirring as it tried to process all that was written.

Then I felt a deep relief in the pit of my stomach, as the knot within uncoiled itself. And with that, I began to sob.

It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. He wanted this.

I honestly thought that was the end of the whole affair. That I could finally put all that happened behind me and mourn grandpa, properly.

Until Jill turned up in my life.

Jill. Sally’s granddaughter.

Her mother, Sally’s daughter, had been keeping tabs on grandpa, apparently. For some reason, my grandpa’s foretold fate had weighed heavily upon Sally, and up to her death, she had regularly reached out to my grandpa to check in on him. Apparently, my grandpa tended to respond with curses, which she didn’t mind. She just needed to know he was alive.

Sally passed quite a few years back, and before she died, she had instructed her daughter to continue to keep tabs on my grandpa. Which her daughter did. Sally’s daughter had apparently not inherited the gift that Sally had, but she was conscientious in carrying out everything that Sally had instructed her to do upon her death.

Jill, on the other hand, inherited the gift. She was a part-time fortune teller, with an online service. Like, seriously.

When Jill’s mother found out that grandpa had died, she had got Jill’s help to arrange for a wreath to be sent to grandpa’s wake.

It was when Jill was delivering the wreath that she caught sight of me at the wake, and had a fucking vision. Of my death.

Knowing my grandpa’s terrible struggle throughout his life with the knowledge of his death, she didn’t want to make the same mistake Sally did. So, when she hunted me down at grandpa's home, she gave me the choice.

Do I want to know how I will die? So that I may try to delay it? Or would I rather remain blissfully unaware, and live life as I would have anyway?

I promptly kicked her out of the house, but not before she told me that she could prove she was legit. There would be hail in our town in a week’s time, she had said. There had been no sign or warnings about hail, and the last time hail rained down on our town was many years ago. So I was hopeful that she was full of shit.

But that was a week ago, and today, it fucking hailed. There was a smatter of thuds on the roof, and I looked out to see ice pellets showering down.

I’m fucked, I think. I don’t know if I’d get in touch with Jill. I don’t know what I’ll do exactly.

Seriously, what the hell should I do?