He was a bookkeeper who learned, the year his wife died, that you can settle a debt early. Any debt. Even the ones you have not made yet.

So he began paying ahead. A stranger's grocery bill. A boy's school shoes. The fine on a library book he had never borrowed. A tab at a bar he had never entered.

They called him generous. He was only afraid of owing.

The last thing he paid for was a funeral with no name on the card. His own. Thirty years before he needed it. The receipt read: for the man who will not ask.

He died owing nothing. He died unknown. The town never decided whether those are the same thing.

A legend from the desk.

If you want the one behind your own face, the first is free: https://paper.wf/damien-wolf

#microfiction #shortstory #legends