Obit

Sitting in the morgue, with all the previous day, months and years of newspapers, I was working on my 10th or perhaps 11th obituary of the day.  It was quiet and I had everything I needed for possible research on whoever’s passing I was chronicling.

Liz came in with a cup of coffee for me, something that happened once or twice a day. She sat down on the wood stool next to my cramped desk and sipped at her coffee cup as I typed away.

“Why do you go to such great lengths?” she asked as if in mid-thought.

“What do you mean?” I asked in return.

“Well, you spend so much time writing about someone who’s dead,” she answered, “and they’ll never see your hard work.”

Looking over my horn-rimmed glasses, “I do it for the living, too, you know.”

There was a few seconds of silence between us as I continued to type and Liz continued to sip. Then I thought to add, “It’s like writing a mini-biography, a last hooray for a person who can’t do it for themselves.”

“Yeah,” she retorted, “So who will write your obituary when the time comes?”

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it,” I laughed.

After Liz left, I sat there thinking — who would write my obituary?