The Body Remembers, and I Long to Forget
Abandoned and desolate are the things left behind
This story is in response to Idea #5 of JF Danskin’s “6 Spooky Writing Prompts.”
When I die, I would like to be cremated upon a pyre along the Ganges. Let me burn amongst rose petals and the shallow clay dishes burning with a small flickering light under the dazzling sun.
What a spectacle I would make. I am not ashamed to tell you that I weigh close to a thousand pounds. I believe with the right chemicals, they could transform my current inflammable to a highly flammable state.
My owners have been gone for so long.
There was a time when dead houses were recycled. I don’t think I would like that. Who’s to say what part of me might remember? The other houses laugh when I say this and remind me that all my intelligence is in my central processing unit, and if the makers came back they’d wipe my circuitry before recycling.
“But,” I tell the other houses, “haven’t you heard the expression, the body remembers? What if part of me, my tiles, my windows, my custom-built kitchen suddenly vintage is transferred to a new building, and then there might always be the ache of desecration? That wouldn’t be good for the new inhabitants.”
