Flash! Fiction by Peter McMillan - HTML preview

42

The Obits

It was a mistake, but who among us …? Anyway, now I'm reading the obits. That’s how I get even. My granddaddy, grandma, and my old man—what a useless bag of wind he was—used to go through the obits in between games of canasta on the side porch with whoever they could drag in as a fourth. You know, it is kinda satisfying to see when you've outlived someone you knew your whole life.

And, God, what a pleasure to read the obit of someone you hated, like Arthur Sanders. What a two-faced son of a— Bastard put me in retirement 10 years early. Said I had a drinking problem. "Well, how do you like that Mr. Sanders, sir?" Dog days, last summer … well now … that was the jackpot. The Reverend Milligan and Miss ‘Pris-sy’ Ducharme in the same edition. Got caught out, didn’t they now?

And by God, no less. For all those lies they told. God's justice I'd say, ruining my reputation, scaring kids. "Well, last laugh's on you isn't it now? Heard the gravediggers wanted to put you in the same hole, so they’d finish early." What a hoot! Almost up there with when J. Everett Singletary III's cremated remains got mixed up at the funeral parlor. They say widow Blankenship’s ‘Peaches’ is still on the mantle at Singletary House. But today’s just a waste of 50

cents. Only one obit. Nobody I know. Just this little kid, not even four years old. What a shame! Says he died two days ago. Hit by a car. What was he doing in the road for God’s sake? Where was his mother? God Almighty! Couldn’t be! No! That little curly-haired boy—brown eyes big as copper pennies—waddling out into the road after a— But I swear I saw him moving!

First published in Daily Flash 2012: 366 Days of Flash Fiction.