His Father’s Ashes

by E.P. Lande

“Son, I want you to do something for me.” Karl’s father lay on his bed where he had been for the past several months, waiting to die.

“What can I do for you, Father?” Karl had been a dutiful son over the years and would never think of refusing his father’s last wish.

“You know that I would have left Massachusetts, if I could have, but my illness has kept me here, close to my doctors and the hospital.”

His father had a rare form of blood cancer, requiring transfusions every few days as well as adjustments to the medications his doctors had prescribed, requiring frequent trips to the hospital. Karl knew, from consultations with the doctors, that his father had only days left to live.

“I never liked living here. I agreed because of your mother. For her, the museums, the concerts, shopping in Newbury Street, the Back Bay neighborhood where she was born and raised. To me, all that meant very little. I’d rather be by myself—or with you, Son—hiking Mount Katahdin or fishing off the Maine coast. But your mother wouldn’t have it; she kept me tied to dinner parties and gallery openings.”

Karl recalled his father’s frustration...and changing moods...every time he had to dress for one of these occasions and make “small talk” with his wife’s acquaintances.

“I compromised my interests for those of your mother’s...because I loved her. When she died, I thought I would be free, free to live wherever the hell I wanted...but then this bloody disease caught hold of me, tying me to this bed, my doctors and the hospital, keeping me from leaving Massachusetts.”

While Karl knew his father had been unhappy since his mother died, he thought it was only natural, and that, in time, his father would recover and begin living again.

“It’s too late now for me to leave Massachusetts and go wherever I want to, so I’m asking you to do it for me.”

“What’s that, Dad?” Karl asked.

“I want to be cremated, and I want you to take my ashes to one of the peaks on Mount Katahdin where you and I hiked the few times I could get away from all the tra-la-la here in Boston, and cast my ashes to the wind. It will free me from this god-forsaken place. Will you that for your old father?”

His father went into a coma that night and died the following morning. Karl had his father’s body cremated, and, with the urn containing his father’s ashes, he drove from Boston to Baxter State Park, to climb Mount Katahdin.

Parking the car, he placed the urn with his father’s ashes in his knapsack, together with a bottle of water, and sandwiches, and began his climb.

Hiking up Mount Katahdin was not easy, but Karl had done it a number of times over the years, always with the encouragement of his father. Now, with his father’s ashes in his knapsack, Karl felt his father was with him, and that he was fulfilling his father’s last wish—to take his father out of Massachusetts.

When he reached the top, it was late in the afternoon. The sky was clear and the air, pure. He lay his knapsack on the ground, opened it and took out the urn with his father’s ashes.

“Well, Father,” he said, holding the urn in his outstretched hands, “...we made it. No more dinner parties, galas, opening nights at the museum. I dressed you in the corduroys you liked to wear, and your favorite T-shirt. I wasn’t sure what shoes to put on your feet so I chose a pair of Nike’s that looked well worn. No socks, as I knew you hated to wear socks.”

He took the cover off of the urn, and with might, cast his father’s ashes over the cliff. Karl watched as the cloud of his father’s ashes made its way down the mountain.

Suddenly, he felt a gust of wind. His hat blew off. When he reached for it, he saw a mass of grey dust ascend the mountain toward him, swirling as though it were a vortex. As the mass of grey dust approached, it accelerated, enshrouding him, attaching itself to his clothes, his hair, masking his face, his arms and his hands.

It was his father’s ashes.

Karl struggled to escape, but the mass of dust clung to him, coating him. Karl tried to wipe the ashes from off his face and shook his hands through his hair, but the ashes wouldn’t let go. Karl began running down the mountain. When he reached his car, his only thought was to return to his apartment in Boston and take a shower. He had no thought of stopping. He needed to be home as soon as possible.

Several hours later he stood under the shower head in his apartment and felt the cool water on his hair, on his face, and on his body. He opened his eyes and watched as the water, grey from his father’s ashes, dripped onto the shower floor and down the drain, making its way along the underground pipes, to eventually reach the leech field where the water, saturated with his father’s ashes, would mix with the Massachusetts soil, to remain there for eternity.

BIO: E.P. Lande, born in Montreal, has lived in France, Vermont and now in S. Carolina. As Vice-Dean, he taught at l’Université d’Ottawa. He has owned and managed country inns and restaurants. Since submitting three years ago, more than 125 of his stories and poems have found homes in publications all over the world, “Expecting” nominated for Best of the Net. His debut novel, “Aaron’s Odyssey”, a gay-romantic-psychological thriller, and “To Have It All”, a psychotic thriller, have recently been published in London. “Dancing With Katie”, an Argentine tango sweet romance, will be published this year.