Excerpt from my microessay published in MicroLit Almanac, April 2023
Even as I waited for Tammy, the ever-helpful and annoyingly chipper cremation services representative, to return with paperwork (even in death, it turns out, there are contracts to sign) in that generic room, decorated in a somber shade of gray and, jarringly, the stark white of perhaps, heaven, thumbing through the death product catalog, ominously titled “Afterlife,” and kindly left by the ever-resourceful Tammy, with her black nail polish and black pantsuit, who took her time, I might add, in procuring the “funeral goods contract,” vanishing for almost 20 minutes at which one might speculate may have been intentional—
I clicked through and read the whole piece. Lovely, well-written, keep going!
Really cool essay. It reminds me of that scene at the end of The Big Lebowski when the Dude and Walter go to the funeral home and are appalled at the prices. Good stuff!