Ashes

Link Ginsburg read his father’s will a second time—the words hadn’t entirely sunk in. He glanced at his father’s urn resting gently above the refrigerator. ‘Crazy dad,’ he thought, ‘we would’ve paid for the burial.’

He glanced at the will again and read it aloud.

“To my son,

Upon my death, I would like my body to be cremated. As for the ashes, I would like you to take them and visit all of my enemies. I would like you to then throw a handful of ashes into each of their eyes, and then run away.

Your loving father.”

Link folded the will up and placed it in his pocket. He understood the words, but he could never tell, with his father, if he should take them seriously. This was the same man who named him after a video game elf.

Link glanced at the urn once again. The kitchen light from the neon overhead bounced off of its glistening surface. Link had to turn away as the gleam rocketed toward his eyes.

As he turned back, he knew his father was trying to tell him something.


* * * * * * * * * * * *


Link’s first stop was his father’s third-grade teacher, Mrs. Noerr. Link was shocked to find she was still alive, and sweated as he thought about launching a heaping pile of his father into a 95-year-old woman’s eyes and running away.

He tracked her to a retirement home in Seven Hills. It was quiet, peaceful, serene—nobody noticed that a 25-year-old man was carrying a silver urn across the grounds.

Link stopped at the front desk and told the worker there he was looking for his grandmother.

“What’s her name?” asked the worker.

Link responded, “Noerr.”

“First name?” asked the worker.

“Mrs.” said Link.

Link headed up the stairs and down the hallway to room 312. There was an 18th-century wood carving of a kitten hanging on the door. He knocked.

An old woman with huge coke-bottled glasses answered the door.

“Did you used to teach at St. Sebastian’s in Parma?” Link asked.

“Why, yes,” she said. “Yes, I did.”

With that, Link released a handful of ashes straight into the old woman’s eyes.

He ran.