The Sickness
The sickness, that’s all we told Billy.
He couldn’t believe that Grampy fit into such a little container and we couldn’t convince him Grampy wasn’t coming home.
“But Grampy lives at home. Where will he live?”
The two were inseparable from Billy’s birth. Half-day Kindergarten was traumatic. Grampy paced all morning waiting for Billy to get home.
Once we gave Grampy a T-shirt emblazoned “Grampy: the myth, the legend, the man.” He wore nothing else unless it was pried off him to wash. He looked so peaceful in the casket wearing that T-shirt, we cremated him in it. Damn coronavirus.
From Guest Contributor NT Franklin
NT Franklin has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.
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