That Deadly Siren

A recently widowed young bride is making her goodbyes to her husband. Thanks to James A. for suggesting a better title.

“Are you done crying, Dear?” asks Theresa in a soft voice.

Angela is sitting on the sofa. Her mother, Theresa, ex-cop, is by her side, holding her hands. The twenty-year-old young woman has been crying her eyes out all morning. She’s quiet now. She raises her head and dabs at her red-rimmed eyes with a white lacy handkerchief.

“No, I’m resting,” she whispers. 

Angela had only been married a month when the Grim Reaper (Grimmy, to his friends) claimed her 80-year-old husband’s soul, two days ago. There he lies, , dead to the world, supine on the threadbare Persian carpet he bought last year from Tunisia. Members of the family and a few friends are scattered about the living room, whispering, sipping wine and snickering behind their hands.

 

Angela heaves a sigh. As if on queue, the door bell goes “DING! DING!” (the “DONG” stopped working since the poor man died.) The maid opens the door and ushers two men in. One is fat and sports a ridiculously small moustache, just a smudge under his nose; and the other is thin, with droopy eyelids and a fixed smile. They’re the undertakers, come to take George.

As they’re struggling with the stiff corpse of the deceased, endeavouring to put him in the carved mahogany coffin, the freshly widowed lady launches into a new fit of sobbing. Mother Theresa (what? Should I call her Father Theresa, instead?) puts her arm around her daughter’s shoulders, “There, there!” 

George’s wig slips off his bald pate and his brother (half brother, actually, as his father had married a Vietnamese girl who.. but that’s another story) delicately places it on the man’s chest. Angela is horrified and jumps up, declaring that her husband has never left the house bare headed. She rushes to the bedroom to fetch George's denture adhesive. She knows he always kept it near the Viagra box. 

“Just a tiny drop”, she says over her shoulder, “and the problem is fixed”. 

When she comes back, however, the wig is in place and the men are marching towards the door. One of them, the fat one, I think, tells her: “That’s alright, Madam, we found a thumb tack on the table.” 

She stares at them, pop-eyed in mute dismay.

 

The undertakers march out followed by Angela and her mother. The bereaved young lady’s face is hidden behind a black veil. She holds on to her mother’s arm as if afraid she might collapse. Everyone else files out and gets into their cars. Mother Theresa opens the black Mercedes door and pushes her daughter's head down. "Watch the head, Dear!" She, then, goes round and gets in next to her. The hearse pulls out at a slow pace and the procession follows.

 

Mother Theresa takes her daughter’s hand. “Tell me, darling,” asks mother Theresa, “what happened? I thought he had a good constitution.”

“It was his heart, mother. But he was such a wonderful man. He was considerate, affectionate, caring, soft-hearted, which is probably what killed him.” She sighs audibly. 

“Sunday was his favourite day as we used to make love to the sound of the church bell.” Her eyes tear up again. 

“He would still be alive if that damn fire engine hadn’t gone past.”

Reviews

[LastMonth]

You should be telling stories all day, every day.
You're so god damn good at it.

I kinda wish you messed up once so I would have something else to write here,
But every review is pretty much the same.

Hahaha.
Good Twist.
Well written.
Snarky comments fit well.

Well, here's another boring review for another excelllent story woods.

[Woody]

absolutely not boring at all, my friend. on the contrary, mucho flattering. thanks a ton (?). see, I'm running out of novel thanks. very kind of you and I'm bloody happy you think so highly of my writes. but I assure you there is a handful of which I'm not proud. I don't want to remove them. I believe I have improved with time and thanks to good, consciencious reviewers.

[Nusquam Esse]

You sir have a sick sense of humour! And I love it! hah! I find the whole situation so absurd, I mean... that old and only married for a month, and it keeps going on about all these things that were done (which while possible, seems unlikely). I definitely got a kick out of the end, I mean... a thumbtack? really?

[Woody]

and you Sir have just made my day. thank you Nusquam.
sick sense of humour, you say? I will stop at nothing to try and make my readers smile.

[Woody]

BTW, I like your c.. eer, rooster. I don't want you to get ideas.

[Nusquam Esse]

everyone enjoys my... indeed... best to avoid giving any wrong impressions...

[Nusquam Esse]

clearly you intended to say chicken... clearly...

[Woody]

obviously.

[Marie]

THis is great. I laughed all the way through. You could have ended it with the line "He would still be alive if that damn fire engine hadn't gone past." That was really your punchline and your closure.

I found a mistake in this piece, and I never found one in your work before. A dead body is a "corpse>." A "corps" is what the Marines are in.

[Woody]

haha thank you Marie. You're absolutely right, the fire engine bit should hve been left till the end as it's probably the funniest. And I could kick myself silly for that blunder about the corpse. silly me.