Grandma's Ashes

Grandma's house used to be filled with ordinary people. People like you and me. She died a week ago, leaving behind a legacy as one of the finest mediums in all the county.

She gave comfort and reassurance to all those who suffered the vulnerability of lost loved one, even though my parents never quite believed it.

As requested, Grandma was cremated, and her ashes settled in a colourful jar atop the windowsill in view of her beloved garden.

Her video will though, requested one last, unsettling thing.

That her ashes be put into an oil lamp and be used as light.

Oddly enough, we obliged to this request, half-expecting the ashes to smother the flame and render our lamp useless.

We gathered around our kitchen table, I poured the ashes into the oil beneath. A flame quipped up, quite shockingly.

We took back everything we said about crazy ol' Grandma at that moment.

Her ashes burned a flame that raided the room with the grotesque faces of the undead. First tens. Then thousands. Swarming our home with their gaping mouths and their empty eyes. All surrounding, approaching the pebble of a flame dancing out the the tip of the oil lamp.

Weeks on, the flame still burns, and we're all afraid to put it out.