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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Microfiction: The Nearly Departed

  • When actor Brian Denton awoke Saturday morning not to the sound of his alarm clock, but to the constant chirping of new e-mails and Tweets flooding his phone. He picked it up, drug it over to his face since his contacts weren't in, and read his own obituary on CNN. It was disconcerting to learn that he had supposedly died in the night. Even worse was the fact that the news could find no worthwhile accomplishments to mention outside of the moderate success of his films.

  • CNN apologized for the error. Something about a file copy of his eventual obituary accidentally being posted by an untrained assistant. At least it had people talking about him again throughout the weekend. But the damage had been done. Brian was a failure, no matter how much money he made in the movies. And he had made a lot of money.

  • On Monday, he called his third ex-wife to ask for advice. She told him to get back to work and cash in on his fame while he still had a chance. His second ex-wife told him that she did a little dance when she heard he was dead and was not happy to hear him alive on the phone now. His first ex-wife, though, took him seriously and told him that charity work was the only way to redeem himself. She also told him never to call her again.

  • He thought about African charities, but everyone was working Africa now. You can't through a stone anywhere in the continent without hitting a concerned rich, white person. And he wasn't about to do anything with the poor or homeless in the United States. They would want to take pictures of him helping out and those people are dirty.

  • Finally he settled on fighting breast cancer. There was a charity he could get behind. Money would go toward people who actually deserved help. And best of all, what better way to meet needy women than through a charity for needy women, right?


© 2010 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.

1 comment:

  1. That was great, I got a several laughs from it :-)

    ReplyDelete