Paper Covers Rock

Michael McIntyre

Issue 16

Flash Fiction

I am sitting in a folding chair before the altar steps and watching as people enter the back doors of the church. Tradition dictates that I stand, but I feel as if my legs might buckle under the strain. I’d sit in the front pew, but I don’t want to stray too far.

I can see the puzzlement, doubt, and accusations in their faces when they notice the odd scene at the front of the church. My in-laws use the words “blasphemous” and “obscene.” They still blame me for having the indecency to survive the car accident that took their Marjorie’s life two years ago. I thought then that I would never know worse pain.

I had to buy a 1000-foot roll of paper from The Office Store, and its matte brown look clashes with the clean, white marble altar and the stained glass windows depicting the Stations of the Cross. Not sure what I’ll do with the roughly 994 feet left.

It doesn’t matter what any of them think, they don’t know what I’m—they simply don’t know. This is the only way I can get through.

We were at a family picnic only three years ago. Marjorie was sitting and eating a ramekin full of her homemade banana pudding while Josh and I played a child’s game. He turned to me with that tilt to his head he got whenever he had a question for me.

“Why can’t paper cover scissors like it covers rock?”

“Because those aren’t the rules. Everything is balanced with this game. All the objects have a weakness, something that can neutralize them.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Neutralize. Hmmm, it means to make something ineffective, to cancel out.”

“Cancel out.”

Josh’s face got that sly smile that appeared when he’d thought his way around a corner. “But what if the sheet of paper was big and thin? Then rock could blast right through the paper. Rock beats paper. Nothing beats rock!”

That set me off laughing. He could always break me up with his unfailing logic.

“I guess so, son.”

So, I covered him. I completely covered his too small coffin with paper and taped it down for tensile strength. If I can’t see him, he isn’t dead. I don’t want to see the starved drawn look that cancer painted over my boy’s face.

If I don’t have to see him in that coffin, I can say he is sleeping. He is either asleep in his bed, or on that green field and we’re still playing Rock Paper Scissors. There could be that much magic in the world. He is only napping under a huge sheet of paper, and any second now he will come crashing through and shout, “Nothing Beats Rock!”

Any second now.

Any second—

Michael McIntyre is a life-long resident of the Charleston area, and has a bachelors degree from the University of South Carolina Beaufort. He got his start writing songs then transitioned into fiction, non-fiction, plays, comics, and poetry. He has had pieces published in The Pen, Humanitas, and Charleston’s Free Time. He currently lives in downtown Charleston with his wife, Amy, and their Australian Shepherds, Bruce and Bowie, named after Springsteen and David, respectively.