OBITUARIES by Rebecca Klassen

OBITUARIES by Rebecca Klassen

I’ve written my son David’s obituary. I’ve written one almost every month since he moved from our hometown all the way to London. It’s hard not to worry about your children, and he’s our only son. There’s something about the process of writing it all down that feels pragmatic. This was the first one I wrote after he left:

With heartache, we announce the death of our dear son, David MacKintosh, aged just twenty-two. David passed away from listeria, having consumed an item from the organic vegetable box we sent him without washing it first. We should’ve known he wouldn’t have had any idea how to prepare a celeriac. Please know that we were trying to help, having discovered he’d eaten nothing but Nandos chicken and Frosties for over a week.

Turned out it was just a tummy bug, probably caught from those escalator handrails in the Underground. All was fine until he sent me a text saying he was going on his boss’s stag weekend. David sent a screenshot of the schedule and wrote, “Should be fun!” I took to my notebook.

Today we remember David MacKintosh, whose life was snuffed out in a vicious attack. Our beloved son was murdered by his boss, a man nicknamed Chug, who coerced our son into consuming five Jägerbombs before maliciously shooting him in the chest with a paintball gun. The protective vests enforced by Splat Attack Activities provided little protection. We would appreciate it if you would honour David’s memory by boycotting Chug’s wedding, which is still taking place this Saturday.

Just a bit of light bruising on his thigh, apparently. Also, I’ve been told since that Chug is a teetotal pacifist, now married to Vanessa.

One evening, David sent me a photo of a gentleman he was about to meet at a bar from a dating app. David added several emojis of hearts and smiley faces in the photo caption.

I wrote at 2am that night:

We lay to rest our cherished son, David MacKintosh. His time was cut short by a man named Raoul, who broke David’s heart by failing to show for their date. Unanswered texts and calls (I believe it’s called ‘ghosting’) led David to take to his bed, cry himself to sleep, and die of heartbreak as he dreamed.

The next obituary came a little sooner than expected, when David mentioned that he and his new boyfriend, Raoul, were taking a couple’s class together. I assumed it was cookery, but paintballing must’ve given him a taste for danger.

It is with sorrow in our hearts that we announce the passing of our beautiful son, David MacKintosh. An adventurous soul, David sadly fell to his death from a trapeze during a couple’s circus skills class. Expecting someone you’ve known a matter of weeks and had less than three brunches with to catch you mid-air at thirty-feet was a little foolish on David’s part. Assuming those large, bouncy nets would break your fall rather than your neck was completely naïve. Nonetheless, we mourn our son, and will never look at a big top the same way.

David introduced us to Raoul when we last went to visit him in London. Lovely, chap, who clearly cares a lot about David. That’s all you want for your children, isn’t it. Someone who loves them.

Over tapas, David told us a little more about his job. He is a content coordinator. Lots of computer work and using something called chatbots, which he tells me run on artificial intelligence. When we got home, I grabbed my pen.

Broken-hearted, we announce the death of our only son, David MacKintosh. He was killed in a robot uprising at his office. Alas, his colleague, Chug, was also taken too soon, and our sympathies go out to his wife, Vanessa. Let this be a lesson to all of us to respect technologies that we don’t understand.

Sometimes I think about David back here in our hometown, maybe walking to the shop for milk, scanning the local pages for jobs, or watching Master Chef with us. I imagine he never left, his life taking a different path. I fantasize that we never dropped him off at the station with his suitcases, and I didn’t cry to near dehydration. When I think about all this, I refer to the obituary I wrote when I thought he might stay here for good.

It is with huge loss that we mourn on son, David MacKintosh, who lived and died in his hometown. He ended his life, without adventure, without a partner, without finding his calling. If only we’d encouraged him and loved him a little more to let him go.

Rebecca Klassen is an editor from the Cotswolds, UK. Her work has featured in anthologies and publications such as Mslexia Best Short Fiction, The Phare, Superlative, The Wild Word, and The Drabble. She has won the London Independent Story Prize for flash fiction, and performed her work at Cheltenham Literature Festival and Stroud Book Festival.