by Sandy Wilson
pure spirits
Be careful what you wish
for
The solicitor peered over his half-moon glasses with grave solemnity and
pushed the mahogany box across the vast expanse of tooled green leather that
covered the desktop.
“Your Godfather has bequeathed this item to you, Celia. There is an sealed
envelope inside.”
Celia lifted the lid. Under the envelope was a strange bird surrounded by a
nest of white napkins.
“I understand your Godfather was Geoffrey Soames, a diplomat in
India.”
“Yeah, I think so.” Said Celia with the disinterested of a
fifteen-year-old. She vaguely remembered a fat bloke squeezing her six-year-old
cheeks. She stuffed the envelope in her pocket, closed the box and left the
musty office and the ghoulish solicitor.
At home she placed the hideous bird with the sharp beak on the mantelpiece
next to her parent’s hideous carriage clock and headed upstairs to her bedroom.
The box would be handy to keep her makeup stuff in, she thought, flopping onto
her bed.
Then she remembered the envelope.
My dear Celia.
No doubt the gift of the
bird will be a disappointment. But,
whosoever possesses the bird can make
three wishes. Choose carefully.
With kindest regards
Geoffrey
Yeah, right? Geoffrey. And I’m Madonna.
Later, Celia put her skepticism to one side and made a wish. She decided to
start with wish for a fortnight holiday for two in Magaluf and see what
happened.
The next morning her father walked into the kitchen. “Registered delivery
for Celia Thornton. Must be important.”
Celia slit open the envelope with the butter knife. “I’ve won a holiday for
two, dad!” She squealed.
Her excitement soon evaporated when her enraged father told her that over
his dead body she would take her feckless, fuckwit boyfriend to Magaluf.
“I hate you dad, I wish you were dead!” She shouted as she slammed the
front door.
*
“The beak penetrated here, Martin. See, just above the left eye.” The
pathologist pointed at the small red rimmed hole in the victims head.
“You’re sure it was an accident?” Asked DI Fuller.
“Absolutely certain. I’m guessing he had some sort of seizure. That would
explain why he was gripping the ornamental bird so firmly when he fell and
impaled himself on the beak. Death would have been instantaneous.”
“A painless death, then.” Said the inspector. “A small crumb of comfort for
the family. I’m off to see them next.”
Rather you than me, thought the pathologist running a scalpel around the
dead head.
*
Celia listened, with a growing sense of horror, as the inspector explained
the circumstances of her fathers demise to her sobbing mother. This was all her
fault. She had caused the death of her father. Hadn’t she wished him dead?
*
After the funeral Celia lay on her bed floating in a sea of grief and
misery. She had wished her father dead. A common enough aspiration of truculent
teenagers, but for Celia a wish that had come true.
Then she remembered. Scrabbling under her bed she found the letter. Of
course! Three wishes. She had three wishes!
Celia ran from the house not stopping until the fresh earthen mound of her
father’s grave lay in front of her.
“I wish my dad was alive again,” she shouted, startling a woman arranging
flowers at a nearby grave.
*
Her father’s eyelids fluttered, then opened to impenetrable darkness. As
his fingertips felt the coffin lid inches from his face, he began to scream. His
daughter, waiting above, heard nothing.
There is no better sound insulation than six feet of damp soil.
About the author
Sandy writes fiction, memoirs and the occasional poem. A member of Otley
Writers his work has been published in the anthologies The Pulse of Everything
and The Darkening Season. He has published Memory Spill a memoir of his
childhood in Scotland and two poems were included in the international poetry
anthology Indra’s Net.
++++++++++
Author of Memory Spill - a childhood memoir
: available from Amazon.
Contributor to The Pulse of Everything - anthology of poetry and
prose: available from Amazon.
Contributor of flash fiction and poetry to the American
literary website The Drabble.
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