And Then Comes Justice

Prologue

Once again Shari sat alone on the plane during the long flight for her annual executive meeting in London. She loved travelling to London, but she hated leaving her husband behind. Per his request, she would take many pictures and would FaceTime with him from her hotel and various places around the city. But, traveling just wasn’t the same without him.
She smiled as she looked out the window closest to her seat, knowing that if her husband were with, he would have his face plastered against it during the entire flight. But her smile faded as she sat there looking out the window. As usual, three hours into the flight, Shari started to feel restless and her legs started to ache. She looked at her watch and sighed, “Six more hours.”
Working very hard the day before, she was well prepared for her presentation. So, she didn’t feel like getting into work mode just yet, and it was too soon to take a nap. She thought about watching a movie, but then she remembered that her husband slipped something into her bag when he dropped her off at the airport. She pulled her bag out from under the seat and looked inside. “His book,” she said aloud. After reading the title, her eyes were drawn to the bottom of the cover. She read his name, smiled, and then turned the page.
She began to read;
 
Jordan’s Witness

“An inch to the left, and I would have come to this dismal place alone.”
“Yes, almost, but not quite,” Adam said unemotionally.

David was speaking in terms that Adam understood and would usually be quite passionate to discuss. But today was not a normal day. Today was a day of mourning. Adam spent his entire life talking in terms of luck and balance. Because to him, every part of the human life experience was a scientific clear cut formula that boiled down to a progression of chances and coincidence.
To Adam, there were no absolutes, and there certainly was no destiny. Not for him, not for anyone. We were all part of Mother Earth’s pond of goo that was governed by an equal balance of Ying and Yang, good and bad, right and righter, and life and death. If Adam were sure about anything, he knew that you couldn’t have one without the other. And unfortunately for Adam and David, Mother Earth was recently busy playing in her pond.

In his typical, Adam-like way of responding to his friend, David, he told him, “Although, I don’t think you can describe this place as dismal, David. There is too much happiness here for it to be dismal.” Adam paused for effect, and then continued with, “And yet, dismal, sorrowful, happy, or surreal; I really don’t care. We've been over all this before. It doesn’t matter if it was an inch or if it completely missed me, the outcome is the outcome, and I don’t want to talk about it – not today.”
“Well, I might not always come up with the best ‘word’ as you, Sir Adam, but at least I don’t sound like a snob. Stop correcting everyone. There are no cameras around. No fans. Not here, not today. Besides, it makes you sound pompous my pseudo celebrity friend. And if you want to speak about it or not, an inch to the left is all I’m stating. An inch. One inch.”
Adam brought up an eyebrow and thought about commenting on his friends’ accusations of him being a wordsmith, but he decided differently. Instead, both men grinned and then laughed briefly. After all, David was right; being there was not what either of the men (nor anyone else for that matter) would want to do on any given day.
However, for Adam and David, this was especially true knowing that amongst the Montgomery’s other friends, in their minds, Adam and David stuck out like a couple of oddballs. But, oddballs or not, they didn’t have much of a choice. They had been friends with Jordan, the man that they loved to call Cast, for what seemed to be forever. They owed it to Cast to be there, even if it was the very place that they said they would never go, a place that they would rather be caught dead in; Jordan’s church.
Sadly, and quite ironically, it took the death of their friend to break their promise to Jordan to set foot in his church. Nevertheless, for this reason and this reason alone, they had to put their feelings and ‘non-beliefs’ aside for the love of their friend. Not being there for him or Janice wasn’t even a conceivable thought.

Adam laughed again as he asked David if he remembered why they started calling Jordan, Cast.
“Sure, I remember. It was because he fell off of his roof and almost died; you goof.” David paused briefly to study his friend. “You know, for someone that is so smart, and admired by millions… you sure can be quite absent minded sometimes.”
Adam scrunched his eyebrows and smirked at his friend as he thought, “David can be so simple minded sometimes.”Then he smiled, as he addressed David, “Yes, of course I remember. It was a rhetorical question that was meant only as a means for discussion.” Adam visibly nervous looking continued with, “I don’t know about you, but this place gives me the creeps.”
David looked at Adam inquisitively about a rhetorical question, but quickly shifted his face to that of understanding, they both felt out of place and were getting nervous. If the other guests singled the two men out to chat with, they might bring up the god conversation that Jordan was so fond of doing, particularly during awkward moments like memorial services.
Adam thought it was best to keep talking, “It was the funniest thing to see Jordan lying in that bush with his legs straight up in the air. I can still see that branch sticking out of his pants. I swear that if it were Halloween, it would have looked like he was pretending that the bush monster was trying to eat him.”