Give a little whistle

Derick reviewed the legal file as a crowded subway car lumbered toward lower Manhattan. He had just been engaged for the firm’s first case representing Highland Insurance, and he was going to win it. Your Honor, the Claimant’s demand for cancer treatment expenses is without merit, he began rehearsing mentally. This was true, under the strict terms of the policy. And, while Derick had some sympathy, the Claimant should have read the policy more carefully. Furthermore…

The exercise was interrupted by a commotion in the seat next to him accompanied by an unpleasant odor. A slight turn of his gaze revealed a man with a grey beard and a frayed shirt. The stranger smiled warmly through his faded teeth. Derick turned his attention back to the file.

“Give a little whistle…” the unwelcome passenger hummed and whistled softly.

“Excuse me!” Derick finally responded.

“That is what my friend Sir Jiminy says,” the old man said with glee.

Before Derick could respond, the stranger reached into a paper bag and thrust a jar in front of him. Inside, two crickets jumped and slid from behind the man’s dingy fingernails. Derick did not know which irritated him more, the bugs or the fingernails. He turned back to his file. This time, however, his mind moved to a song that his grandmother sang to him as a child. Give a little whistle, he responded silently.

“Always follow the straight and narrow path,” the gentleman continued to sing under his breath.

Derick again recalled his grandmother, but this time it was the last few weeks of her life. His grandmother was in and out of the hospital, and Derick would visit each day. They were his last memories.

The lawyer closed the file and turned his attention to his new acquaintance and the crickets.

300 words