Author: G. Gleason, Word Count: 972
Featured in Midwinter Archaeological Story Moot: Live Stream – Christmas 2023
Oliver was determined to spend Christmas at home.
He’d carefully rebuffed coworkers offers of communal celebration. “I’m polishing the
numbers extra hard this year. All those new accounts…” Not a lie, so much as a careful arrangement to
be busy at all the right times. That Oliver, he’s a worker, you know. Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm.
He’d dodged a dozen Christmas dinners, half as many Hanukkahs, and a Kwanzaa or two.
Now, just when it seemed he’d won his Yuletide solitude, the Amazon guy showed up to
pound on the door. PA-tat-tat-tat, PA-tat-tat-tat. Those poor folks. Jeff B. demands much. On the
holidays, too. Shame. Padding across the worn green carpet, which had been laid down sometime
before Eisenhower, and through the velvet fuzz of entirely too much eggnog, Oliver reached the door.
He’d gotten the lease on this place for a steal, modern conveniences be damned.
Amazon guy?
The great master spreadsheet of his mind clicked and scrolled. He hadn’t ordered anything.
PA-TAT-TAT-TAT. Never put your eye to the peephole in a neighborhood like this. It
wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because the lens(and the doorbell button, for that matter) had been
covered by a strategically positioned wreath, chosen for its prickliness.
Through the chilly sliver of light allowed by the cracked door, he saw the half-line of patchy
Astroturf on the landing, and the half-line of sky above it, broken only by the communal Dumpster,
filled mostly with unwanted furniture, which had been chucked there by parties unknown, from well
down the road under cover of darkness.
Oliver had just enough time to notice the gossamer nicotine-stain flicker before he was flung
back and pressed against the wall. There was a languid scrape as a picture frame slid groundward.
“I can’t believe you Ollie. I thought you were better than a dump like this.”
The door slammed behind the nicotine-shape. There was no mistaking that smoke-filled
rasp.
“Granny Gladys?”
“Of course it’s me, you stinkpot! Who else would visit you in this hobo den?”
“I’m going to state the obvious here. You’re dead.”
“Yes I’m dead.”
“There’s usually a follow-up to that sort of line.”
“I’m a ghost. So what? Have you got any Jinny Slims?”
“Of course not. What have you got against hobos?”
Granny Gladys was most definitely dead. She had lived to the ripe old age of 118. Only the
last four had been spent at a retirement home, and she had seemed in fine health. Given her reputation,
there had been rumors. It had bee a dubious honor being Gladys’ “favorite”, since she’d proclaim it to
anyone in the family who had at least one working ear and no reasonable means of escape.
“I’ve got nothing against hobos, Ollie, but you’re not one so don’t insult hobo-kind by
pretending.”
“You crossed the barrier between life and death to impugn my frugality?”
“Oh, is that what this is? Little plastic knick-knacks and a cheapo TV? They used to build
them to last. Plastic is overrated.” The smoke-scarred voice seemed thoroughly disappointed in him.
“No.” The front door slammed. “I came to grant my favorite great-great grandson a wish.
Given the season, I think you should be grateful.” The old woman had once boasted that there hadn’t
been a high-roller in Vegas that she hadn’t fleeced, or passed out from effort to the same end.
Oliver could only shrug, and think of all the Columbo he wasn’t watching. With a kind of soft
alarm, he realized the lasagna he’d been making was going to end up being cold and slightly overdone.
“So the powers that be feel that I deserve some boon for being such a great person? I try not
to be too much of a jerk, Granny, but I’m no saint either. Which particular one of them did you manage
to fleece out of his angel feathers?”
“Psh. Those idiots. Fleece my foot! I convinced them that a break from me would be
preferable to the alternative.”
“That must have been an easy sell, you old dragoness.”
“Don’t be smug. Where are my Slims?”
“You don’t have lungs, Granny.”
“I know,” she said, resignedly. “I suppose nicotine addiction persists beyond the grave. I wish
I had known.”
“It’s a powerful thing,” said Oliver, gravely. “So, what’s it like? The hereafter?”
“Serene, and boring as hell.”
“That’s not a very firm real estate pitch. Which reliigion is right?”
“Not mine, that’s for sure.”
“I wouldn’t think so. Not much chance for the adherents of late night televangelists to be the
chosen onee.”
Now, Gladys was getting irritated. “About that wish, Ollie. It took a lot of convincing for
them to grant it on behalf of a no-account accountant like you.”
He let that pass, but through gritted teeth, he asked, “Any suggestions?”
“It has to be a single thing or event. No wishing for world peace, no piles of money, or any
garbage like that. I don’t suppose you’d see fit to wish that I am, say, alive again, in an immortal body?
Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Oliver frowned, deeply. Now, memories of cheap, thoughtless gifts, of cruel thoughtless jabs,
of embarrassments suffered unceasingly until his 45th year. “Now, I see your game, Granny. ‘Favorite’
my eye. Now, what would your oily preacher think of necromancy?”
Granny was at a loss for words. All she said was “Now, Ollie–“
“I’ll tell you what I wish, Granny Gladys: I wish that I had gone to the Rubensteins today
instead of being visited by you.”
*
So that was how Oliver spent his holiday. Among friends and having drunk entirely too much
wine. A few times, glancing into the night from the Rubensteins’ big parlor window, he thought he saw
a faint nicotine-stained form wavering mournfully in the darkness–but it was just the Zinfandel’s
blessing.
Granny Gladys was bored. FOREVER.
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