FLASH FICTION:WHY SHOULD Aidan wait? Waiting seemed to measure his days. Today he'd waited for buses, reply letters and dole money. When would he get ahead again? It was a fact that Aidan's mother-in-law, Judith, had exploded. At least that's what they told his wife.
Thankfully they’d all just filed out of the crematorium when it happened. There was an extremely loud bang that no-one dared to investigate. It ruptured the intimate huddlings of everyone special to Judith, and violently shortened the sympathies of those who’d come because they should.
To be truthful, Aidan wasn’t all that fond of Judith; she always gave him tea after everyone else was seen to, and spelt his name wrong on Christmas cards. But, it was a bad end, humiliating really. Judith was the quiet type; she certainly didn’t like a fuss. Blowing up an incinerator just as the funeral guests departed wouldn’t have been how she would have chosen to be remembered. Aidan may have had plenty to learn about his mother-in-law, but he knew that much. Family, neighbours and friends were treated to a spectacle, and God only knows what found its way into her ashes. Needless to say, the funeral meal became a small, quiet affair.
It was the pin in her hip the experts reckoned. The crematorium blamed the undertaker, who laid off bravely on the hospital, who were asking questions of the next of kin. But, Aidan’s missus was the next of kin, an only child too, either the blame or the compensation were all hers.
It was another waiting game, the biggest of them all. Meanwhile the mortgage was four months behind and the ESB five – they’d ditched the landline months ago.
But, in the meantime, what would they do about the memorial card? That preyed on him in a way that surprised Aidan. His wife asked for his advice this afternoon, and he wanted to do right by her.
Poor Judith, she left her mourners with one inglorious memory – “Sleeping with the angels”, “Remember me”, “Rest in Peace”. Nothing seemed to oust that final statement. So, he did what any decent husband would do. He blanked the memory of all her mourners diving for their vehicles, and settled on: “A sudden call from God on high”.
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