literature

Everyone Brought Flowers,You Brought Your Game Boy

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Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

October 3, 2015
Everyone Brought Flowers,You Brought Your Game Boy by MeMiMouse is a short story that shows how grief isn't only about who's left behind, but who has left also.
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Literature Text

The way he was talking, you wouldn’t have realized she was gone.

“Jeez, Aunt Connie! Cold out, eh? What’s up wit dat? Figures Bradley made me come all the way out here. Mind if I take a seat?” my younger brother, Kevin, asked as he sat atop our dearly departed aunt’s gravestone. “Nice view here, eh?”

“Kevin!” I hollered. “Show some respect, you jerk!”

“What? What did I do?”

“Get yer rear end off the grave. What’s the matter with you?”

Kevin hopped down from the stone and brushed dirt off of his torn jeans, scattering filth over the grave. He adjusted his woolen beanie and brushed his dark bangs out of his brown eyes to reveal a scowl. “What’s the matter with YOU?”

“Excuse me? I’m not the idiot sitting atop our aunt’s gravestone as if it were a junky lounge chair!” I snapped.

“Jeez, man! Aunt Connie don’t care. We broke all her lawn chairs makin’ that fort. She always let us crawl al’over her furniture. How’s this any different?”

“Kevin, that was over a decade ago. We were ignorant little brats that didn’t know any better. Seems like you still don’t.”

“What the heck, man? You go off to college for three years, and suddenly you’re better than me?” he asked in an insulted tone. “I don’t get ya, Brad. You’ve changed!”

“I’ve matured a little. Maybe you should try it sometime.”

He paced around the grass. “I’m mature. I take responsibility! I’m gonna take care of Aunt Connie’s dog and cat from now on. Mom said I could. They’ll miss Auntie fer sure, but I think Cloe and Mittens will be happy with me.”

“Yeah, well. We’ll see how long that lasts. Remember those hamsters we had?”

“But we were ‘ignorant brats that didn’t know any better.’ Bleh!” he replied mockingly.

“Besides. I bet they really did just run away.”

“Sure they did,” I grumbled sarcastically.

“No, I’m serious, dude. Mom said she lied that they ran away to make us feel better, but I think…”

“Don’t start, Kev. I’m sick of your outlandish theories.”

“Jeez! Why you so ticked at me?”

“I still can’t get over how disrespectful you’ve been these past few days,” I replied and held the collar of my coat closed. It was quite brisk outside. The gray sky made the graveyard look eerily dim, even during the lunchtime hours. The sun refused to make an appearance. Some would have blamed my irritability on the weather, but I knew that was certainly not the case.

“Disrespectful? Dang, Brad! Always such a fuddy-duddy. I got off the gravestone. Ja-eez!”

“It’s not just that. Oh, lord! Look what you did!” I pointed.

“Wha?” Kevin looked down at his feet. His sneakers had trampled all of the flowers that our friends and family had purchased and placed in honor of our aunt. “Oh, dang. Oopsies. I didn’t mean it. Plus, Aunt Connie don’t care. She always hated flowers. As presents, I mean. She always said they died, anyway. What’s the use of um? A waste.”

“That’s not my point, Kevin.”

“Jeez! It’s not like I’m gonna go and step on everybody else’s, man. I’d never do that! All I’m sayin’ is, is that Aunt Connie prob’bly don’t even care bout these flowers. She prob’bly even thinks we’re nuts fer bein’ out here in the friggin’ cold. We can talk to her anytime, anywhere. We don’t gotta be here.”

“We’re paying our respects.”

“Well, let’s pay um in the car with the heat on.”

“Didn’t you care about Aunt Connie?”

“Of course I did! How could you even ask that? I loved her, and she loved me. So, she wouldn’t want me freezin’ my butt off. Let’s go!” he laughed.

“You’re such a… such a… Augh! You have no sense of decency! I don’t believe you!”

My comment wiped the smile off his face. “What, now? You got another problem with me? Pft!” Kevin asked and spat right on the grass.

“Really, Kevin? I mean, really!”

“Whoops. Sorry,” he replied.

“Ugh. I can’t take it, anymore! You’re ridiculous.”

“What? What did I do?” he asked with shock. “Why ya flippin’ out?”

“This. All this. The lounging around, the flower-squishing, the spitting… Such disrespect! At the funeral, everyone was talking about her and crying. You were telling stories and laughing! Everyone brought flowers, and you brought your Game Boy!”

“Hey, I finally got the family high score in Tetris that day,” he told me defensively.

“Yeah, but did you have to announce it during the service? Everyone was staring at us!”

“Yo, definitely. Aunt Connie announced her high score during church. What better time for me to do it?”

“Your reasoning eludes me.”

“I’m sorry, Brad. Maybe you don’t think I’m being respectful, but I am. I have to honor Aunt Connie in my own way. If you and all the others wanna do it the ol’ fashioned ‘proper’ way, go ‘head. But Aunt Connie wasn’t one of them uptight formal gals. No sir. She was a champion of fun, and I intend to remember her that way. Thank you.”

My mouth opened, but I was at a loss for words.

“Aunt Connie… Now, she don’t wanna be remembered as the little secretary that was taken down in a freak car accident. Nope. She wants to go down in history as the Paper Towel Roll Sword Champion, Queen of Stray Dogs, the Mightiest Power Ranger, First Ever Female Ninja Turtle, Hide-and-Seek Master, and Dunk Hunt Extraordinaire! Oh, and don’t forget Super Cartoon Woman and, most notably, holder of over fifteen World’s Coolest Aunt Awards!”

A small tear slid down my cheek, and I sniffled.

Kevin stopped his glorified speech and looked at me with concern. “What’s the matter? I make you that mad? Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll just stand here and…”

“No, no. It’s not that. You just reminded me of all those things that you know… She used to do with us. I forgot all about them. She was like another kid… another brother to play with.”

He smiled. “Heck yeah!”

“I really do miss her zany antics…”

“Yeah, she missed you, too, when ya moved off to your big shot dorm n’ all. Why just a few days ago, she showed me this! She’d been treasuring it.” Kevin reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, and handed it to me.

“What is it?” I asked as I began to unfold it.

“It’s the ‘Best Auntie in the World’ Award you drew for her when you were six. Hah! You could not spell for your life!”

I unfolded the paper carefully. The crumpled document was fifteen years old, almost nearly as old as Kevin himself. I had drawn a Ninja Turtle with a pink headband holding a Nintendo control and spelled every other word wrong. Still, my crazy Aunt had held onto it as if it were the original copy of the Declaration of Independence.

“Heh. Well, I guess we can go home. We’ve been here long enough. No sense freezing our butts off,” I smiled.

“Amen!” he cheered and blew a pink bubble of gum. After it popped, he sucked it back into his mouth.

“Kevin! Didn’t I tell you to spit that out before we got here?” I half-scolded.

“Jeez! I have no where to put it,” he grumbled. “Oh, here!”

My little brother stuck the pre-chewed gum to the front of my sports coat and headed back toward the car.

“So disrespectful,” I chuckled as I knelt beside the gravestone. I plucked the gum off the front of my coat and stuck it to the back of the award.

“See ya later, Aunt Connie,” I whispered and stuck the gummy award to the stone.
This short story was technically written for a class, but I wanted to dedicate it to a relative of mine. In this piece I was trying to make the younger brother seem laid back and the elder brother was to seem much more uptight. (I love to focus on character interactions in my stories.)

If anyone manages to read the whole thing, please let me know what you think~

Please do not re-post or reprint my writings without my permission. Thank you.
© 2015 - 2024 MeMiMouse
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LordByriis's avatar
I'd be like Kevin once my stepdad died. He's the coolest, and is the best art teacher I've ever had