Jimmy - A Short Story
Jimmy died on the third of September, in the year twenty hundred in the year of our lord. We found out a week later, and only when the police brought us to the station in handcuffs, asking us to identify his belongings. Only his identity card remained. The rest of him was shot to tatters, more lead than flesh and blood in the mangled carcass we saw lying on the dissection table. Already, half of the bullets were out. We couldn't tell the difference.
His funeral was held with a closed coffin in St. Thomas' Chapel on the corner of Main and Third Streets. Portraits of him were hung across the alter, and the priest gave a chilling eulogy. Something about Young James being a paradigm of virtue and an example for us all. I'd have sworn that we were at the wrong funeral, or something. Could it have been our Jimmy that he was talking about? A paradigm, my ass.
Jimmy killed more people in cold blood than the Nazi's did in, at Auscho-whatever. He pushed junk outside church, and did almost as much as he sold. Before he died, he has an infection in his arm. He shared a dirty needle with another junky. I wasn't with him. I just got lucky. He was also a sexual freak. He'd slept with more women than I can count up to, and spread AIDS, herpes, and a few other things to all but the first seven of them. He'd even slept with a few men. My thoughts jerked back to the circumstances, and I listened to the closing prayer. Jimmy would have hated it.
There was a small lunch, afterwards. Food for the dead, I guess, because noone else was hungry. Noone really feels like eating after somebody they know dies. I didn't feel like eating, myself. A funeral really takes the spring out of your step. Noone really talked. A bunch of old ladies who probably didn't even know him anyways huddled in little circles, patting each other on the backs and sobbing. I bet they didn't even know Jimmy. His parents didn't even go to his funeral. Noone but us showed up to his funeral, that knew Jimmy. The bullshit finally got to us. We ditched.
As we left the ceremony, there was a loud explosion inside of the chapel. Jimmy's coffin had exploded violently, showering the bystanders and mourners with charred wood splinters and flaming gore. He asked for a funeral pyre, weeks before he died. We gave him one.
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