He's Alive (103 hits)
Category: Noneno reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hornet (View user info) at 2008-11-17 18:36:37 EST
When I was twelve I went to the funeral of my Uncle Warren. I liked Uncle Warren. I hated his wife Sarah. She was fat and acted like she was better than everyone else.
I heard my mom and dad talking once. They said that Warren had married Sarah because she was pregnant, and that he understood duty. It took me a long time to find out the meaning of those words. They also said that Sarah miscarried a month after the wedding. I had to look up "miscarried" in the dictionary.
Most of my family was at the funeral home. Aunts and uncles and cousins were talking in hushed tones while Sarah stood by Uncle Warren's open casket.
Even at a young age I was bothered by the fact that she would now have Warren's big house to herself, the house Uncle Warren had built and worked hard to maintain. Aunt Sarah had a sad expression on her face but her eyes looked almost bored. I couldn't understand why no one could see that, not even my dad who was mourning his brother.
I waited by the back of the gloomy room until Sarah stepped away a moment, and then I went up to the casket to say goodbye to Warren. He was the man who taught me the concept of the practical joke. He was the man who showed me Cassiopeia on a crisp winter night. He was the man who took me out on RR #9 one quiet Sunday morning when I was nine and let me drive his Chevy truck, the one with one blue door and one red door. I loved that truck. Uncle Warren loved it too.
Sarah had already sold it for scrap.
I looked over my shoulder and then said my goodbye. I knew Uncle Warren would understand. When I was done I went to the far end of the room where a trash basket was tucked under a table. I threw a little bottle of Elmer's Glue and a matchbox into the trash, and sat in one of the many stiff wooden chairs that had been set in rows in front of the casket.
Sarah was back a minute later. Aunt Pattie went up to the casket, being led by my cousin Mike. She was crying so hard she could hardly walk. Pattie was Warren's sister, not Sarah's. As Pattie left she said, "Doesn't he look peaceful?"
Sarah looked down at Warren, play-acting the whole time, I'm sure of it. She let out a dramatic sigh and gazed lovingly at him. And then she screamed.
It was one of the best screams I've ever heard, and I love horror movies more than anything else.
"HE'S ALIVE!" Sarah was waving her arms and doing this jerky panicked dance in front of the casket. "HE'S FUCKING ALIVE!"
She bent over and threw up on the floor.
Everyone else in the room just started at her.
Sarah looked in the casket again, and I know that she was seeing Warren's eyes moving rapidly under closed lids as if he were asleep and dreaming.
Aunt Sarah passed out. Her knees buckled and she went down, taking the whole casket and Uncle Warren with her. Warren hit the polished marble floor hard, hard enough for his eyes to pop open, the cheap glue on his eyelashes giving way and freeing each of the cockroaches I had placed under his eyelids.
For the rest of her life Aunt Sarah was a nervous wreck. She didn't enjoy that big house so much after all.
User Reviews
No reviews