| Jim was a good guy. But nevermind that.
Nevermind that he paid out thousands to irate bookies, nevermind that he paid special attention to every executive assistant he ever knocked up. He was kind, wholesome, and decent on most levels, but let us put that aside.
Jim had pride to deal with, pride and fear. He'd made enemies, clawing his way to the top, drinking from a ceramic cup while the rest of us sipped from foam and imagined him dead. No one saw it coming.
His door was locked that day--no one saw him jump. He liked to lock his door and turn out the light...must have felt we'd all imagined him gone, but we knew better: we knew Jim was always in there. But no one knew he'd left, through the back way.
They found him splattered, of course. Twenty-two floors of gravity will have that impact on a man's body, even a man as callous as Jim. Brains don't squash like mellons--oh, they splatter, but not absolutely. There's a greased sack of skin to hold them in and they whoosh out only through common orifices--ears, eyes, nose--and one or two others that the impact provides. But much stays within the shattered pulp of the skull, undulating on the sidewalk below.
None saw it coming. When the cops came to open the door, none had the key.
He'd written his note in the dwimmering of humanity's last stand, he'd written it electronically. Too bright to merely hit ctrl-S, he'd "saved as" text only. His note, which caused at least one hardened veteran of the NYPD to cry real tears, salt tears, was saved in text-only format. Jim wouldn't let any of Microsoft's blasted preformatting follow him to the grave: he'd said what he wanted to say, and that only. And he'd saved. (Good thing, too, lest some well-meaning law-enforcement agent click an X and Jim go bye-bye.) We love him for this.
He shall be missed. | 
