One Shots

Living body?

An: Some background on this short story before you guys read it. So this is a story I wrote back in my AP lite. class in 11th grade, the assignment was to write using the writing still of a specific writer. We had just finished reading this book by Dave Eggers, the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. This book was published as a memoir but the teacher pointed out that as we read it, it was hard to tell what was real and what was fabricated and unreal or if this is how the events happened in the writers head as the events happened. So the direct directions of the assignment was to think of a memory of ours that was meaningful or shaped us in some way. The goal was to make it so you wouldn't be able to tell if this was fiction or not. Well this is the end to the note, I hope it helps give a good background on the story. I hope you guys enjoy this piece and if so don't forget to vote on it and as always comments are welcomed
Jasper *~*

So people die, death is a normal thing in the world. That is of course unless it's one of your family members, then it's the end of the world. Like look at it this way, you're walking past a funeral home with people in it and think nothing of it, just another dead person. Then all of a sudden you're in that building staring down at the body, the face that seems so familiar but not the person it says it is. It has no face but a mouth that forms on the eyeless, nose-less canvas. It speaks, the body is speaking.

"So you came to say your goodbyes to me"

Faceless dead bodies should not be speaking.

"Who are you"

"What do you mean"

"Why are you laying there, pretending to be my pa"

"I am your pa"

"Where's your face"

So here I stand talking to this faceless body in a coffin claiming to be my great grandfather. While I know for a fact that my pa is still sitting at home, so why is this dead body claiming to be my family member. Who is he really?

"It's right here can't you see it"

"I see nothing, now who are you"

I honestly do not feel like arguing with a dead body. You know what really bothers me how funeral is spelled with fun. My pa was one of those old Italian guys that was still super racist but all that aside he was amazingly fun and had a good sense of humor. He was a world war 2 veteran which made it amazing how he was able to always smile.

"Hey, I'm still here you know"

"Oh yea, faceless body"

"I'm not faceless, do you really not see my face"

"Well never mind that" I can't stand to look at this body "do you know why funeral is spelled with fun, I really want to know why"

"Why are you asking a dead person that"

The faceless body has a good point but I still want an answer.

"So do you know or not"

"No, who would know that"

"Well clearly somebody has to know it"

The face is of course blank but if it was making an expression it would most likely be irritation. It is his funeral after all, I shouldn't be questioning the body but that isn't going to stop me from doing it.

"Hey, say do you realize you're dead"

"Obviously I do, I mean I can tell I'm sitting in a coffin"

"More like laying, but can You still think"

"Of course I can still think"

"Then tell me why funeral is spelled with fun" I try to look at the faceless body but fail it's just too ugly

Are all dead bodies this ugly. They don't look ugly in shows and they still have faces. Or are shows lying to the viewers and all dead bodies look ugly and grey and faceless. Oh but back to my pa, he was in the air force branch of the army so he flew one of those like jets I think. So he flew one of those in world war 2, I don't know which one though. Also my grandfather was a cop we still have his badge and everything, we don't have any of pa's stuff though.

"I don't know why there's fun in it ok, do I look like I'm having fun"

"I mean sort of"

"Not at all"

"Hey do you think it hurts to die from poisoning"

"I wouldn't know, don't you think you're a little too obsessed with death and dead things"

"No why"

"Well you've been standing and talking to a dead person for quite some time"

"Have I, what time is it"

"I don't have a watch"

"Oh right, time doesn't matter for dead things, you have a century of rotting ahead of you anyways"

"Thanks for that"

"Yea no problem, oh it's super late now" I turned down to the body and for a split second I saw his face.

I saw his face for the first time that whole service. He wasn't lying, he wasn't faceless, I had just choose not to see his face. The body that I thought was faceless was really my pa.

"Bye, rest peacefully"

"You look shocked have you finally opened your eyes"

"You haven't answered my question but rest well, I'm going"

That was the last time I saw my pa's face on a body. After leaving the funeral home, I threw up. Seeing his face like that made me sick, more than just sick, I was disgusted by him in that state. A survivor, a veteran that didn't die after the war, the man that saw some of the worse the world has to show and still smiled like the world was beautiful. The world did not have the right to take a human being like that away, absolutely no right but still that's what the world did. Maybe I wasn't sick because of him like that but because of the world thinking it owned everything that walked and breathed its air. The world is what's sick not me, the world needs help not us. After that night I never stepped foot into another funeral home and I cursed at the world and everything above and below. To think after that I never saw pa again, and to think I gave up on a religion. It really was the end of the world for me then and it still is now.