Tag: mourning

All Stories, General Fiction

Helen vs The Gas Pump by Joel Pedersen

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Helen stood at the back of her car, in the unrelenting heat of summer in the desert, staring blankly at the pump. This was the first time she had pumped gas since David had passed. A great, vital man. A locomotive halted by the failure of the tiniest part, cascading into ever progressive, irrevocable destruction. It was one of the worst things she had ever experienced, and when the end came it was the worst relief. She had her hand on the valve when, looking back at her car, past the faded McCain 2008 bumper sticker, there was no gas cap cover. She remembered then that she had always been on the opposite side of the car, in the passenger seat, as David pumped gas. So she got back in the car and turned it around.

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All Stories, General Fiction

A Flower for a Lost Grave by Andrew Johnston

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It’s right rare that someone asks me to take them down a road I don’t know – been traveling the backroads of Teyach going on twenty years, and the only ones I don’t know are those little sandy, marshy stretches in the inside. Figures that’s where the lady wanted me to take her. She wasn’t much of a talker, wouldn’t even give me her name. She just sat there in the passenger seat with her eyes fixed on the horizon, those dried up flowers crinkling in her grip. Not that I didn’t try to make conversation – drive mile after mile through silt that’s aching to swallow your tires whole, and you just have to say something, even if it ends up being to yourself.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

Funeral Crashers by Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

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My older sister Nancy and I love funerals. We go at random every weekend, ingratiating ourselves into the crowds, the friends, the family. We pretend to weep with the mourners, while we absorb things with the coldness of detectives, me in an oversized suit, borrowed from Dad. Nancy in one of Mother’s nice black gowns. We love the darkness, the garb, the somberness. The people gathered together, mothers and children, cousins, nephews, people with connections we cannot fathom. Being so close to darkness, a kind of whirl, excitement. We don’t know dead people, the wildness of loss. Mother and Dad are divorced, but that’s different. They wear fedoras and lavender and false civility. Even our grandparents still live, regaling us with tales of meeting Teddy Roosevelt and other trivialities.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Odd Legend And Fuck All Else by Hugh Cron – Warning Adult Content

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Barry sat on the bed as he read the letter.

“Well that’s old Jim away.”

“Your granddad?”

“Yep.”

She sat down and put her arm around him.

“Are you okay?”

“I suppose so.”

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All Stories, General Fiction

Chicken Roll by Diane M Dickson

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I’ve been in the park, lunchtime I went to sit in the sunshine.  It was nice.   I was on my own as usual and today I just had an apple.  It was small, red on one side, green on the other and there was a small bruise near the bottom.  I hadn’t brought sandwiches today.  Partly because I was late up and didn’t have much time but mostly because I only had chicken roll in the fridge.

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