The Prologue:
The bottle of whisky sitting in the corner of what is now the "junk room" just pleaded to be opened.
Because of his ridiculous yet endearing tendency to put value in inanimate objects, Ethan downs the liquid from the bottle. It's expensive, the label says so, plus it was from Dylan of all people (a belated not so secret Santa gift). However, largely ignorant to brands of drink, he fails to notice anything distinct about it other than its price tag. It burns his throat just like a cheap bottle he and Cal used to buy from the corner shop would, and its after effect is the same. A couple of hours of numbed pain followed by a raging headache and regret. It's illogical really, but after a long shift, he is more than prepared to brush sense aside.
'Ah, what on earth...' he mumbles to himself, shaky hand pulling a piece of paper to the light.
It reads:
Caleb Knight's Bucket List
(to do before I meet my fate)
-Sleep under the stars
-Go on an expedition
-Learn to canoe
-Go down on one knee
-Do a marathon
-Go to Bora Bora
-Tandem skydive
-Memorise the periodic table
-Learn to knit (to tell Nibbles I can)
-Do a family tree
-Drink the most expensive bottle of champagne out there
-Tell my brother how much I love him
-Learn to play guitar
-Have a waterfight, irrespective of weather
-Get an outrageous tattoo
-Read the fifty shades trilogy
-Sing to an audience
-Get a promotion and specialise
-Get one of those ridiculous cats
-Have a threesome
Ethan snorts at the last one, screwing up the piece of paper. He pauses for a moment. Smoothing it out once more, he shakes his head a little. Even sober, he'd deem his own brother writing a list like this hilarious. It wasn't a Cal thing to do.
Maybe he'd done it in med school and forgotten about it. Maybe it was one big joke. Maybe he really did want to do all those things but never got the chance.
He slumps against the wall, piece of paper still tucked in his fist. Boxes clutter the room, and although he swore to sort things out two hours previous, not much headway had been made at all. Items spew over the sides of cardboard, and his head is already too sore to continue. A job for another day, once again. In order to ignore the repressed emotion rising as a lump in his throat, he scrolls social media looking for solace.
Someone moaning about their neighbour, an advocate of a vegan lifestyle, yada yada, an old girlfriend's wedding day — shit. He drinks some more.
Nagging thoughts of the list creep back into his head. Cal, being Cal, never had the sense to devise a will. The immediate aftermath of his death had involved Ethan being sat in a solicitor's office, making blundering guesses as to how best distribute the assets. Of course, he himself kept many, to hang on to memories if nothing else.
Everything else went to charity. Ethan was never fully convinced that was what his brother would have wanted, moreover, he knew Cal's ideal will would consist of the phrase "flog it" written in bold next to all items of value, but in doing so would remove both sense and sentiment. As the living one, he applied logic and thought in the hope that somewhere, someone would thank him for doing so.
His brother's sloppiness and general attitude to life meant that he never really paid it a thought. Caleb loved living in the moment. He was young, he didn't need to be bound by some legal document. He couldn't have possibly anticipated a rogue thug of a relative with a knife would cut his thirty year life to an abrupt end.
In the absence of anything formal that affirmed his post-death wishes, the list is the best thing Ethan has.
'I'll do it, big brother,' he mutters under his breath. 'Every last one, if I can. It's only fair.'