Content Warning (CW): death
Funeral Planning
Cecilia Kennedy
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Vines send shoots up the sides of our house. It’s just one section of the house, and I should be concerned, but I think they give the siding a lift, and I want them to cover the whole thing in leafy branches and intricate curves.
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“You’ll die before I do,” I tell my husband. “And I’ll be sad.”
“How do you know I’ll die first?”
“People in my family live until they’re 90, and we’re almost halfway there, and you’ll be gone, and I’ll live alone for a very long time.”
He just shrugs his shoulders, unconvinced it’s true, and says we should do something about the vines crawling up our house.
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I’ve trained them—the vines—to grow higher and cover more of the outside of the siding. I found a magic-formula potion, whipped together from the dark recesses of the internet, and my husband’s concern grows while I water and tend to the roots and shoots, the stems and branches.
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When I get on the ladder to check the vines growing on the roof, a strand curls around my wrist, punctures my lungs, sends shoots through my spine, pressing me so tightly, I can’t breathe or speak.
But I can watch as my husband goes in and out of the house each day, looking tired, grief-stricken, without any idea that we’re both still very much alive.
Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) is a writer who taught English and Spanish in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state with her family. Since 2017, she has published stories in international literary magazines and anthologies. Her work has appeared in Hearth & Coffin Literary Magazine, Maudlin House, Tiny Molecules, Rejection Letters, Meadowlark Review, Vast Chasm Literary Magazine, Kandisha Press, Ghost Orchid Press, and others. She currently works full time as a copywriter and does freelance work as a proofreader for Flash Fiction Magazine and as a concept editor for Running Wild Press, LLC. You can follow her on Twitter (@ckennedyhola).