Flash Fiction Friday

A tiny story to read

Hi, welcome to my latest post featuring one of my flash fictions. Each Flash Fiction Friday post also includes the inspiration for the story and a prompt to get you writing too.

I hope you’re having a nice festive time and thanks as always for being here with me.

With love,

Photo by Astrid Greif on Unsplash

Everything, Everywhere

When I got home from work my dead wife was sitting on the couch. Whole and unblemished and beautiful, like the past ten months hadn’t happened. She was wearing her favourite green tunic and the trainers she’d sewn sparkly love hearts on so she could dance all night without hurting her feet, but still feel dressed up. She smiled and her face and her hair glimmered and glowed.

I closed my eyes.

‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’ she said in a wispy voice that wasn’t quite there.

I opened my eyes and stared at her. Was she mad at me? Was she going to transform into a whirling dervish because I’d finally cleared out all her things? Well, most of them anyway. ‘Hi?’

She grinned the way she always did when she thought she knew something I didn’t. ‘Come and get ready.’ She took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom, pulled my dancing dress from the wardrobe and handed it to me. When I was ready, she slicked gloss on my lips and mascara on my lashes. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of the woman I was before any of this happened.

Back in the living room, with a waft of her hand, she rolled up the rug and hung the disco ball we always put up at Christmas. Candles flickered on the window ledge and the city lights glimmered white and red behind them. Low and slow bass throbbed through the room. Holding her hand out she said, ‘Would you care to dance?’

I swallowed my sobs as she pulled me into her arms. She was semi-solid and soft, present but not. She kissed my neck and her rosewater perfume wrapped around me as our bodies slotted into each other just the way they always had.

I leaned back and looked in her face. ‘Are you really here?’

She shushed me with a finger to my lips, so I dropped my head back to her shoulder and carried on dancing. Carried on breathing her in. Carried on believing.

‘Happy birthday,’ she whispered as the song ended.

Slowly she peeled away her dress then mine and lay me on the couch. Her airy fingers caressed me as her butterfly kisses brought my body back to life.

After, we mixed cocktails and when we had drunk too many Margaritas and my lips were salt-stung sore, we lay on the couch and stared into each other’s eyes. When the sky started to lighten, she untangled her limbs from mine.

‘Do you have to go?’

She nodded and brushed my hair from my eyes with no trace of sadness on her face.

I could feel the tears coming so I buried my face in her neck. ‘Just another hour?’

She didn’t reply.

‘Half an hour, then? Ten minutes?’ I tickled her in the spot on her waist that always made her melt. Her laughter reverberated through me as I sat up.

She leaned in and whispered, ‘We’re always together.’

I blinked back tears. How come I’d been alone for almost a year then?

She stood and slipped her dress back on, pulled me to my feet and handed me mine before gazing out the window at the sun rising behind the grimy tower blocks. She’d always loved that view. Never let the dirt detract from the beauty of the morning sunshine.

When I was dressed, I let the tears fall.

She turned to face me. ‘I’ll show you.’

We sat on the couch hand-in-hand.

‘Close your eyes,’ she said. ‘And don’t let go.’

Wind on my face and chimes in my ears. The swell of the most beautiful orchestra I’d ever heard.

And through it all the clasp of her hand fading away but knowing she was still with me.

Then her voice sang out, sang through me, willing me to see.

I opened my mind.

She was sunbeams and shooting stars, water crashing on rocks and gushing from taps, moon shadows and mountains, spring’s green leaves and winter’s deep frosts, birds floating on the breeze and dolphins playing in the seas. The purest of loves.

She was everywhere and everything.

Inspiration

When so many of my friends and family died between 2016 and 2021, I became interested in death rituals from around the world and researched lots of different ones. I discovered that in Madagascar the Malagasy people have a tradition called Famadihana in which loved ones’ graves are exhumed and a ceremony follows where the bodies are cleaned and dressed in fresh burial shrouds, traditionally made of fine silk, and then a feast and party is held in their honour. The idea for this story was inspired by the image of the bodies in fancy clothes and people dancing at the celebration. It was originally published in Emerge Literary Journal in 2022 with a different title.

Writing Prompt

Research death rituals in a culture other than your own and use something you learn to spark a new story, or scene in one you are already working on.

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