Flash Fiction
by Michael Kevin McMahon
Peoplesoft
Mike grew up in the coldest part of Pennsylvania, a little town hunched beside a grey river. He never liked it much. He dreamed of things he saw in travel brochures – bright sun and white beaches, stucco villages, cobblestones, cascading flowers. But his father was a machinist, his mother was a nurse. They were practical people. They made him keep Rosie, his dog, tied up to a doghouse out back and didn’t take trips out of state.
Miraculously, though, he got out. Detailed, conscientious, he became a technology consultant working on Peoplesoft implementations. He was deployed on engagements to France and Spain, tracing nebulous processes through sloppy corporations, then hardening them for consistent use. For years, he spent long weekends in the sun, lying beside his boyfriend, watching their modest tummies turn brown. He dreamed of owning his own place with cascading flowers somewhere forgotten, where sloppy processes were left happily entangled, without business travelers or tourists disturbing peoples’ ease. He would belong.
But his life changed. He deployed back to Pennsylvania, to Harrisburg, three hours from his parents to the north. They had aged and were becoming confused. He drove back and forth. By the gray river, he managed their pill schedules and engaged in-home caregivers for the days he wasn’t there. It was a grind. His partner left him for someone in San Diego. Eventually, he bought a house near his parents’, planted flowers and shrubs.
Now days were endless calls with younger colleagues working in bright, far-away towns. When he wasn’t working, he managed his parents’ insurance claims. Martinis and bird watching filled his spare time. He bought a small dog, who he named Chewy because she liked to chew on his shoes under his desk while he worked. He talked to her constantly when they were alone. In a few years, she developed a modest, rounded belly like his own.
Chewy grew older. He still dreamt of warmth and bright towns, but eventually his own health began to fail. First little things, digestion, aches, then a cancer scare, then the real thing.
His parents had since long left him. He kept their graves neat but allowed their house to stand vacant, checking it to make sure the lights were out at bedtime out of long habit. In the mornings, he could see the collapsing doghouse out back from his window. He remembered sleeping there to keep Rosie company in winter, dragging his comforter through the yard. Maintaining his own house sustained him. He kept things immaculate, watering obsessively through long summers, talking to plants, confiding his progress with radiation to the silent trees out back.
Slowly, he improved – or somewhat. He was still old. That would not change. Coming home from the hospital after his last treatment he pulled into his driveway one cold, bright afternoon and saw the flowers cascading from his window boxes and a late, late swarm of hummingbirds flickering through the light at his feeders.
He felt something …
But Chewie was barking at him from inside. It was an effort getting out of his car. He had no time to think. It was time for him and Chewie to take their nap. He was home.
Jello Shot
I’m a caterer. Always have been. Inherited the business from my father. He inherited it from his. We’ve always been here. Up on our hill. We have the place with the best views.
People fight to book with us. You can see the length of both valleys, rivers winding through both to meet at the point. Sunlight, twilight are prime hours for us. Weddings, funerals, graduations, anniversaries, commemorative dinners. Life’s milestones. People like to dress up and see themselves. This is me, they want to say later, looking at a picture. Me in a pretty dress, me in a blue suit. Isn’t my life great? Don’t I look happy? Can’t you tell?
We know everybody. Knew them when they were kids. We do them all. Every event, every milestone. They come to us to prove they’re alive, that their life is moving through the gates, that they’re doing good.
It’s not an easy business. Let me tell you. Every day, two, three times a day, we have to be special. We have to produce the moments. Smiles come out, decorations up, tables placed. Food comes swirling through the door. Plate by plate, domes off, a revelation each time.
It’s not, of course. It can’t be. We do our best. But beef’s beef, chicken’s chicken, and the shrimp are always smaller than they remember from when they were a kid.
Plus, of course, they’re not. They’re not that special. They’re normal. It’s life. They’re passing through life’s milestones, like everyone else. Uncle Don always gets drunk. Mother’s heel always breaks. Your sister upstages you, your best friend looks better than you feel.
Don’t tell anyone, but I prefer funerals to anything else, any day. Don’t care what you’re talking, wedding, anniversary, graduation, I’d rather be at a wake. No drama, that’s what I like. A little weeping is expected, no tragedy. So, the foods not what they hoped, no sweat, they’re already weeping. No one’s gonna care.
Plus, funerals, you plan for three days. Weddings you plan for nine months. That’s a whole different range of disappointment. You’re ticking, you’re alive, you’re not a corpse, you have expectations and time to talk about them. You get nasty if you’re not pleased. That leaves endless room for regrets. They need to blame someone. Is it going to be Uncle Fred? Maybe. Is it gonna be mommy or daddy, not likely. No, it’s gonna be me, the caterer. “Fat bastard messed up,” they’ll say.
No, give me a funeral. Do corpses hire stupid photographers? Do they photobomb other peoples’ parties? Whose got the energy to be angry when the event is over -the bride or the corpse? Who wouldn’t want to cater for a corpse?
I’ve been thinking about it lately. When I die, we’re not doing nothing. Handing out Reese Cups from the front porch. No, really. We’re doing just that. Literally. Wrote it up in my will. And my remains, into Jello shots, just for the family, take them or leave them. We’ll serve them out back, on the deck. All gratis, of course.
Any leftovers get thrown out.
That’s how I want to end up. I’m a few ashes, in the last Jello shot, forgotten, left behind on the deck railing. No one knows I’m still there. When everyone’s gone, I’ll watch the sun set, snuggled in my little cup. Listen to the quiet, the night breezes. Come morning, it’ll get warmer, I’ll slowly liquify. Once the chirping stops, I’ll get some birds drunk.
Then that’ll be it. I’ll be gone.
Photo credit: Sergey Kotenev
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