Uncle Liam’s Ashes - Flash Fiction by J.S. O’Keefe

 

Uncle Liam’s Ashes

Flash Fiction

by J.S. O’Keefe

When the doctor announced Uncle Liam had died on the operating table, I didn’t believe him. Not for a second. And I’d tell anyone willing to listen that he was still alive.

Everyone said I was crazy. “C’mon, Old Liam’s good for good, of course he did. Remember, you were right there when the doctor came out and told us. Anyway, why do you care? He hated us and despised you especially.”

Our uncle was a misanthrope, a professional same-day lender. Not only the townspeople but even we, his own family, couldn’t take him.

I’ll never forget, once I borrowed money from him and when I couldn’t pay him back he took my tricycle.

Frank McCourt’s masterpiece, Angela’s Ashes was Liam’s favorite reading. “I love that book,” he would tell us, “even though it’s very depressing. A real tear jerker.” It was Mrs. Finucane’s untimely death that depressed him.

A week passed and the hospital called that, please send somebody to collect the body and arrange the funeral.

Cost was not an issue—the local undertaker gave us an offer we could not refuse. “I’ll do it for free, funeral, cremation, wake, the works. I even throw in a reception, all you can eat, unlimited drinks. You name it, you’ll get it.”

Soon, however, we received a most startling news. The undertaker called from the hospital that they couldn’t find the corpse in the morgue.

Then it got worse. Several of Liam’s borrowers reported that he showed up in their houses at night, demanding payment. He was not a ghost but Liam himself. Alive, wrapped in a hospital bedsheet.

Till then, most of my family had pretty low opinion of me, rightfully so concerning my mental abilities, but that suddenly changed. “How did you know Liam wasn’t dead? The doctor was completely positive that he’d died. What are you, some kind of a seer, a psychic?”

“No, but I do keep my eyes open,” I said. “The doctor is old, needs a magnifying glass to read the news. I also noticed his hands tremble like dry leaves. He obviously couldn’t get the job done right.”

J.S. O’Keefe has published several short stories, creative essays and poems in print and online literary magazines. More at his website: https://www.szjohnny.net