My great-grandfather fell off a bridge on a horse into a river and drowned. The ghost of my great-grandfather caught a wasp in his bare hands and ate it. It stung him. He suffocated. His eyes bulged. The ghost of my great-grandfather became the ghost of a ghost and stared at his hands and refused to eat until eventually the sun burned through him like morning fog. The ghost of the ghost of the ghost of my great-grandfather turned into a mirror reflecting a mirror. The feedback from a microphone. Static electricity. The way your eyes ache when your teeth get cold. He told me if he had to die again his last wish was to see Anna Karenina naked in Heavy Metal Magazine. He told me he knew that wishing for things he'd never get was what ended up killing him last time but that he wouldn't put it out of his mind and that he also wanted the Dodgers to move back to Brooklyn even though that was out of any of our control. I told him I didn't think there would be any more ghosts of ghosts after this one so he better be careful. He stuck a fork into the toaster to prove me wrong. I heard the sound of rushing water. The lights flickered. The ghost of the ghost of the ghost of my great-grandfather smirked. His mouth was a Moebius strip. His voice was a lit fuse. He said he guessed he was here to stay and then popped like firecracker. He left a charred black stain like a star on the linoleum floor.
"The After After Life"
Copyright: © 2011 Shea Newton
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Shea Newton lives in Idaho. He doesn't return gifts. Sometimes he publishes in online. If you want to you can find him there.
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