Pleasant Valley Funeral

Prompt: Someone with the same name as you dies -- this person lives in the same town as you but you do not know this person. You find out about their death because your distraught friends start calling your home and family members thinking it was YOU who died. What happens next? Write the STORY or POEM.

Word Count: 492

The phone woke me up at 2:00 AM and instead of turning on the light immediately, I reached for the phone. The lamp crashed to the floor, along with the alarm clock, its hands stuck at two o’clock, and a plastic bottle of water. I opened my eyes, found the phone and pressed the little gray button so I could talk.

“Hello, this better not be a wrong number because you woke me up and I’m pissed.”

“Sara, you’re alive!”

“Yes, Annie, I’m alive. I’d be a lot more pissed if you woke me from the dead.” Why, I thought, did my best friend insist on calling me in the middle of the night because she had a nightmare.

“Sara,” Annie sound irated, “this isn’t funny. Your mother just called and said she read your obituary, in the Pleasant Valley Journal.”

“Well, it wasn’t me who died, Annie; I’m alive and living in Las Vegas.”

“You didn’t move back home two months ago?”

“No, Annie, I didn’t,” a chill ran up my spine. “Can you e-mail me a copy of the obit?”

Four hours later, I opened my Yahoo e-mail box and read the attachment with Annie’s e-mail. It said Sara Mary Langley, 1990 graduate of Pleasant Valley High School, died Sunday in her Pleasant Valley home. Sara moved back to town two months ago to take a job as managing director of Pleasant Valley’s new Hotel-Casino.

“Damn,” the picture accompanying the obit was a recent picture of me. I remember Charlie, a friend from high school, taking the picture at Boulder Station when he visited Las Vegas in January.

“Maybe I should call Charlie,” I said as I walked into the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee.

“Who’s Charlie,” Greg said as he sat down at the breakfast counter still wearing his work uniform.

“An old friend from high school, Sweet Heart,” I took a deep breath. “Apparently, I died Sunday in Pleasant Valley.”

“You too,” he took a sip of coffee, “my mother called me at work. She read my obit in the paper. She said my photo accompanying the obituary. She told me the mortuary, scheduled funeral this Friday in a place called the Pleasant Valley cemetery at 9:00 AM. You’re from Pleasant Valley, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” my hand trembled so badly I had to set my coffee cup down, “and the funeral for me … my name sake is scheduled for Friday; same place and time.”

“Then why don’t we attend our own funerals, Honey?”

“Greg, this isn’t funny!”

“I don’t think it’s funny and neither does my boss, Sara. Mr. Cochran has offered to fly me and a guest to Pleasant Valley for the funeral.”

“Why did Mr. Cochran make that offer?”

“Because, in the past three months, three other security guards from our firm received the same type of call from close relatives, and all their name sakes are buried in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery.”