Good Ol' Reg

Today's muse: Three Word Wednesday

Today's Words: descent, kill, surreal

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Good Ol' Reg

The soft scent of carnations and roses tangled with the antiseptic stench that clung to his body. Miranda stared down at her grandfather, his hands casually folded, as though he waited for an elevator. The undertaker had arranged Reginald Porter’s left hand over the right, concealing the stubs of two fingers hacked off by a lawnmower blade back in seventy-two.

Miranda’s mother, Laura, dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “He looks good, doesn’t he?”

Yeah, Miranda thought, he sure does. He looks damn good dead.

Reg wore the only decent suit he owned: shit-brown polyester, paired with a wide-collar peach shirt and a paisley salmon tie. It smelled like mothballs.

The whole thing was surreal, Miranda thought. She’d prayed for this day since she was four—killed him many times over in her fantasies—and it was finally here. Family and friends mingled in the visitation suite, laughed and swapped stories about Good Ol’ Reg. What the fuck was so good about him? They talked about him like he was a goddamned hero. She knew the truth, though. Reg was no hero. He was a villain; a sociopath who fed on stolen innocence.

“It just won’t be the same without him.” Laura squeezed her daughter’s arm and wandered away, sniffing delicately into a balled up tissue.

No it won’t, thought Miranda. There’d be no more empty bottles hidden in the garage. She wouldn’t feel his breath against her ear, smell the stench of alcohol and chewing tobacco, shudder as his calloused hands groped and prodded.

It was all over now. Except for her nightly descent into the black abyss of memories.

That, she knew, would never end.


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Miranda's story continues...