A Year of Stories (Collection Two)

Dear Mrs. Livingstone, My Son Is Dead

Dear Mrs. Livingstone,

I'm Billy's mother, Lisa, and I'm writing today to let you know that Billy won't be able to make it to class.

You see, when his Father and I went to wake him up this morning, we discovered that he was dead.

I know, I know, you probably hear this excuse ten times a day.

I'm sure the kids are always asking you to move assignments around or change test dates, just because they decided to spend the weekend outside of their mortal coil.

And I'm sure that 90% of the time, you stumble across something on the Instatubes that shows them working on their tan, instead of decomposing in some shallow grave somewhere.

It must be hard to even trust parents these days, what with how many of them are willing to write excuse letters to cover over their children's delinquencies, but I assure you that our Billy is really quite dead.

I didn't believe it either, at first. When I saw him laying there, pale and rigid, covered in a thin layer of carrion feeders and giving off the pungent aroma of putrefaction – I thought he was just putting on a show – trying to get out of a Math quiz or something.

But after checking his breathing and talking to our neighbor – who is a physician at the local hospital – his Father and I were forced to conclude that our son is, in fact, no longer with us.

I know how inconvenient this sort of thing can be. I'm a Teacher too, High School, which – if you don't mind me comparing notes – can be even worse.

Every week it seems I hear about some student being mauled to death by a faceless horror, or succumbing to some kind of hemorrhagic fever.

You ever notice they always come down with "hemorrhagic fever" just before a mid-term?

Anyway, I know what it's like to have to spend the weekend grading papers because a handful of students can't seem to hold onto a pulse.

But you have my word that after his Father and I drag his immortal soul from the grasp of the Wandering Spring and it's malodorous Ferry Man. After we stitch our child's essence back into the rotting husk which now sits in our bathroom, stewing in a pool of rosemary and myrrh. After we breath a second life into his chest, and he opens his eyes anew to the world he had lost.

You have my word that on that very day, he will finish the book report you assigned to him, and anything else he missed while he was away.

We are committed to teaching our son responsibility. We don't want him to grow up to be one of those people who just goes off and dies for a week every time the going gets tough.

I hope this letter finds you well, and we'll be sure to keep you updated on his condition.

Yours,

Lisa Huntsman