As I explore writing fiction, I have been trying some short, short stories. This one involves two daughters facing a challenge posed by their father.
Last Request
The freeway traffic crept and baked in the July heat.
“Laura, what in the hell are we doing? This is crazy.”
“Don’t complain. It’s your fault. You promised him.”
“We both did. What other option did we have? It was his last request.”
“You’re right, of course. But now we have a huge problem on our hands, a time-sensitive problem since we have nine hours to go in this goddamned heat to the place he marked on the map. And there’s the small matter of breaking the law in at least three ways.”
Eve laughed. “Well, we can’t back out now. That’s for sure. We should be all right unless we get pulled over. Do you think anyone is on to us yet?”
“I doubt it. I turned my phone off so no one can track us.”
“I did, too. Dad would be proud of how we pulled everything off.”
“He’d be proud of you especially. It was your idea to tell the mortuary to take him straight home from the hospital after the doctor pronounced him and did the paperwork.”
“Yeah, but your bullshit brought it off. It was brilliant to say that because he was Jewish, his body would be buried immediately after the service tomorrow.”
“Thank god Jim came through by throwing together a wooden coffin in a couple of hours and then helping us load everything into the truck. We could not have done that by ourselves.”
“Okay, here’s the exit. The ice company should be only a mile away.”
“One more question. When we get there, how are we going to get dad buried?”
“I have no idea, but we have nine hours to figure it out.”