Twitter Fiction Festival Flash Fiction #3. Epitaph by @Archman9. Fiction by Jennifer Wilson. 

Our beloved parents, Momma had drowned, but Daddy was never found.—@Archman9

“David, we’re not putting a date.”

“We are. When she died, he died.”

“We don’t know that, brother.”

“We do, Alice.”

I sighed and looked around the funeral director’s office. It was a nice place. Comfortable. Everything mauve and smelling like violets.

Mama drowned that day they went boating. Sure. We saw her. Blue and gaping and weeds on her dress.

But the men never found Pop.

“We won’t put a date, David. He’s not found yet.”

“You think he survived that, sister? You think he really could? Live in reality, woman! Don’t be afraid to grieve him.”

I just felt it. The women in our family. I knew Pop’s burdens. Had heard those quiet and mincing commands Mama was always giving him. How he dreamed of owning a cabin and building a duck blind and putting up a deer stand up north where it was quiet and free and smelled like evergreens.

I looked at the funeral director. A single man, like me. I wondered if he, too, lived with his sister. Alone.

“They should have the same death date, sir,” I repeated.

The director nodded his head imperceptibly. Alice rose and minced from the room. I’d hear all about it. For the rest of my life, probably.

I looked out the director’s window. Swore I caught the flash of old Pop’s silver-tipped cane in the trees.

I rose and left too.

Comes a time when a man needs to drown his troubles and head north.

Join me @WriterJenWilson Sunday at 12pm-1pm EST (11 CST) and you’ll be featured on the Twitter Fiction Festival Page– four grave images per hour and you tweet the epitaphs. Use the #TwitterFiction hashtag. Let’s make stories together … and tweet the dead. 

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