Marion looked at Sam, cold dead in a satin lined casket, gone before his time, or was it? Victim of a work-related accident, her best friend and brother lay five feet away looking like a wax museum dummy.
That’s not Sam, she thought. I know Sam. Sam does not wear rouge. Or lipstick. And his hair doesn’t look like an old used Ken doll’s. Damn it. What the hell was God thinking?
Sam was victim of a freak accident -- a two hundred pound chandelier came crashing down from the citadel ceiling of the bank where he worked crushing his skull and snapping his spine in two.
You’re not dead, Marion thought. I can smell your coffee breath -- see your blue eyes light up when I ask: Sam, you want some pastry with that? Get up, Sam! Get the hell out of that box!
Tears raced down Marion’s face leaving tiny ski-trails on her powdered cheeks.
How am I going to go? she thought. What have you got in store for me, Big Daddy? Will I be standing with full energy pulsating through my body, and – wham! I’m hit by a truck? Taken out in a blink? Or will I be lying in a urine-soaked bed gasping for air – prisoner of a mind no longer functioning. A burden. A snail. A thing no longer useful or capable of surviving on my own? Or, maybe I'll be making love to a fantasy boy-toy or maybe a real one at $200 an hour? When my time’s up, what’ll it be, God? Heart failure? Aneurism? How long have I got? Where will I be when it happens? The least you could do is give some notice.
Pride and prejudice of the present century, she thought. Pride and prejudice – age, education, religion, sex. What the hell did Sam ever do to you?
Her eyes fell on her brother’s waxen face. Screw it. Time is of the essence. My aim in life now is to orgasm twice a day. Why not? Who’ll I be hurting? Besides, what makes more sense than that?
Marion let out a yelp – a forty-year-old puppy gutted in the groin with a carving knife …initials of her childhood hero taken out by General Electric.
God, you dropped the ball. You dropped the goddamn ball.
To add insult to injury, it pissed rain that day and the air hung thick with fog. Nobody ate the anchovies in her egg sandwiches or Sam’s favorite cherry turnover; although it was the one she designated as tribute to her bro.
For you, Sammy, she murmured, placing it on the mantle above the fireplace where they toasted marshmallows as kids. For you, handsome. Your asshole wife must have been crazy to leave you. And I wish Arthur had half the heart you had.
Marion’s stomach clenched as she buckled to the floor, ignoring the hand that reached out to her.
