LATE
I was late for the FUNERAL. Which in itself is not such a shitty thing, especially when it's yours the one that's missing your charming presence. But getting late was going to be an ass of a problem, with me being unable to find a proper place to hide and watch, safely from the sidelines, all the people that had come to make sure that I was really, irrevocably, and definitely dead. Or if I wasn't, and it turned out to be some kind of DECEIT, at least try to grab me by my balls and squeeze out all the sweet money I owed to most of them.
I should have listened to myself on the mirror, this morning. That it was an awful idea, that I should stay the hell out of the place, steal some fool's car and leave the city, maybe the country, before anybody found out that the DISFIGURED mess that was laying in the coffin on Hall C of Dustman Brothers Funeral Services was not actually Clipper Docks, but a poor guy that had made the horrible mistake of being of a similar build to mine, and actually, kind of an asshole too. Which I thought maybe could help to sell it. If I was sending someone to enjoy the sweet joys of BRIMSTONE and eternal torture in my place for a while, at least I wanted it to be deserved.
I got to the funeral home around 15 minutes later than the service was supposed to begin, and tried to sneak in by the back door, where I found myself in what appeared to be an operating room mixed with a beauty saloon. A guy was busy painting a nice tan by airbrush on one fine looking chick corpse. He had used a surgical glove as a hat, making sure that no hair was on his eyes, and was smoking, if the smell was any indication, a heavy loaded maria joint, which he left on a small ashtray on the chick’s belly when he saw me.
-Ey. Bro. You're next?
I looked at the girl’s tan, her right tit halfway done, and took a couple of tenners from my wallet, which he took without blinking even once.
-Hope not, bro. Been there... done that...
He took a deep puff from his joint and brought his full, if ethereal, attention back to the hot half-tanned chick. I walked out to the corridor outside, opening the door quietly and making sure nobody was out there before I got out. I tried to remember the pictures of the place from the online brochure that I saw on their website. Marvelous, this ATOMIC-virtual-intergalactic age of ours. You can arrange your own whole funeral with just a few clicks. And Paypal.
I was getting to my final destination, if you know my meaning, when I saw that the entrance to the hall was decorated with a lot of party balloons, all over the place. There were red and yellow and pink and blue balloons. Some of them looked like hearts, and there was at least a BALLOON with the face of a smiling clown hovering on the center. Some bastards had decided to disrespect this so very serious moment with balloons. See? That's what I meant when I told you about only assholes coming to my funeral.
Assholes. And Alice.
Don’t get me wrong, she could be an asshole like the best of them, if she wanted to. But somehow it didn't matter so much. Maybe it was the way her legs always CAPTIVATED me when she crossed them over. Or the way she used to take control on bed. Or maybe, damned shitty thing... I still was in love with her. Despite the treacherous cunt she had turned out to be.
I watched silently, waiting on a corner, hiding under an old ragged hat and a dark hair dye. I also had a fake scar running through my face, under my sunglasses. And my body language was speaking in a foreign tongue, loud, and clear, and unintelligible. I knew they were not going to recognize me. I hoped so, at least. But none of them assholes really knew me. Or what I used to do. None of them, save Alice.
But I counted on her thinking that she was the reason. I had told her so, once, not so long ago. That she was going to be the reason that I was going to die. Somebody would come looking for me because something she said, or some shit she did. Or something I did that she couldn't help to let slip at the worst possible time.
And curiously, it had finally turned out to be true. In a way. She was the reason I was dead, at least technically.
The service ended, and everybody stood up, and went outside to smoke and go back to their lives, swearing and cursing because of all the money they had lost. In the confusion I got closer to Alice and slipped my hand inside her purse. I found the keys and took them out.
My original plan had been to pick the proper key, make a mold of it off a clay bunch and slip the key back without her ever knowing. I approached her again and left the keys back. But I couldn't help myself, and also left a small, slightly shaken WILLOW leaf..
And then I went back out the same way that I had come in. I gave the hat and the fake scar to the smoked worker, and started my car. First, I had to make a copy of the key. Then, next stop, the Grand Canyon, and the small box hidden there, somewhere.
And maybe, just maybe, a call to Alice. To see how she was holding up...
I just hope that I will be late for my next funeral too.
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Written as an entry fot the the Flash Fiction Challenge Another Then Words.The ten words in CAPITAL LETTERS were the ones that had to be included on the fiction. Revised and corrected by my good friend Vicente Ruiz.
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/08/23/flash-fiction-challenge-another-ten-words/