Start a story with the sentence: “Wait, isn’t he supposed to be dead?” Feel free to change the pronoun to she, you, I or they. Suggestion: One paragraph, post your work as a comment. Scroll to “Leave a Reply.”
Prompt #3: “Wait…”
“Wait, isn’t he supposed to be dead? I mean, I know I haven’t seen him in awhile and I’d heard rumors. Heard a body was found by a highway bridge and they thought it was him. Hit by a car? Murdered and dumped? I don’t know. “
“He was always doing something crazy. Once he attempted a triple somersault off a a quarry cliff and landed on his back. The stinging redness lasted 2 days. Another time he went hiking by himself and was lost in the woods for 3 days.
“The last time I saw him he said he’d die if I ever left him.”
A Porch of Whittlers 
“Wait, isn’t he supposed to be dead?” I turned to look at the fellow at the counter who was telling this story. Over eggs, hash browns, and coffee, the three of us strangers sat, entertained by the old man in the middle. We all knew the story of the hijacking of the plane in late 1971, and the suspect DB Cooper who parachuted out. He was never found and was presumed dead by now. This old man spoke as though he had met the guy recently.
“Oh no, he’s not dead,” he grinned. “I’ve met him and now, so have you.”
The two of us stared at him, and then broke into guffaws. “Good one. You had us there for a minute.” He cackled with us and signaled the waitress for his bill.
“Well, gents, I am off. It’s been fun. See you here, there, or in the sky,” he said as he rose. He reached over and slipped some bills by his plate.
It was when the waitress froze, holding those bills in disbelief, that we noticed what he had left: two Ben Franklins. They were old-style green. At the bottom was something we haven’t seen since our childhood: “One Hundred Dollars in Silver Payable to the Bearer Upon Demand”.
We looked at one another in disbelief. Then I drawled, “Well, looks like we missed out on our 15 minutes of fame.”
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Prompt #3: “Wait…”
“Wait, isn’t he supposed to be dead? I mean, I know I haven’t seen him in awhile and I’d heard rumors. Heard a body was found by a highway bridge and they thought it was him. Hit by a car? Murdered and dumped? I don’t know. “
“He was always doing something crazy. Once he attempted a triple somersault off a a quarry cliff and landed on his back. The stinging redness lasted 2 days. Another time he climbed out of his seat on a Ferris Wheel and dangled below it until he could jump to the ground. He was escorted out of the fair grounds.
“The last time I saw him he said he’d die if I ever left him.”
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Prompt #3: “Wait…”
“Wait, isn’t he supposed to be dead? I mean, I know I haven’t seen him in awhile and I’d heard rumors. Heard a body was found by a highway bridge and they thought it was him. Hit by a car? Murdered and dumped? I don’t know. “
“He was always doing something crazy. Once he attempted a triple somersault off a a quarry cliff and landed on his back. The stinging redness lasted 2 days. Another time he climbed out of his seat on Ferris Wheel and dangled below it until he could jump to the ground. He was escorted out of the fair grounds.
“The last time I saw him he said he’d die if I ever left him.”
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“Wait! Isn’t he supposed to be dead?” she choked on her bagel as Clancy Bloom strode into the small shop populated everywhere with overpriced knickknacks from cultures around the world.
The force of the door opening, then shutting violently , upset the tiny table nearby, dumping its precious cargo clattering to the floor. Shards of glass everywhere.
He had one hand behind his back holding something.
“You bet,” offered Clancy. “I guess you don’t read the news much. I got pardoned. Turns out I was framed for the murder. Someone set me up.” He advanced towards her.
Helen, now white faced, could see that look in his eyes. That look that filled her with dread and the desire to run as fast as she could away from this demon who had killed his own wife and been punished for it. “Good!” she thought.. I always knew there was something wrong with him.”
She grabbed the small trowel she had used to plant the dark purple and yellow pansies out front earlier that morning. This time she was not going to run. She was done with that. Too many bullies scaring her. Done, done done! “One more step…” she said to herself. “I swear.” This time she was going to stand her ground against a lifetime of being overpowered.
She thrust it hard in his solar plexus, aiming high and upwards.
As he collapsed to the floor, his arm flashed out to break his fall, and the flowers he had brought to her dropped to the ground a second before he did.
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“Wait, isn’t he supposed to be dead?” The old sailor nodded out the window of the dockside tavern toward the black and white flag flapping atop the mast of the sloop that had just pulled into the harbor.
Nathaniel followed his gaze and dropped his fork. He’d know that flag anywhere. The pale, leering skull against the black background, two swords crossed beneath it like sentries blocking a road. As a teenager, he’d saluted it every morning. As a young man, he’d worn it across his back, lied for it, bled for it, thrown it away, picked it back up from the dust, turned his whole life upside down for it a hundred times. He’d wept when he heard the news that his Captain had gone down with his ship, but he’d also been free to live his own life since then without constantly dancing the line between loyal leftenent and mutineer.
“He sure as fuck is supposed to be dead,” Nathaniel said, his throat full of cotton, his heart thumping in his chest. Was this wave of emotion relief? Fear? Hopelessness? Hope? The conflict, at least, felt familiar.
How had they last parted? It had been so long and he’d switched sides so many times he wasn’t even sure, and it shouldn’t matter–he was a better man without Captain Kingston, a happier person who had graduated from pirate to privateer, who’d found friendship and love and fortune on his own terms–yet here he was folding up his napkin and heading for the door, not to bolt for his own ship to sail far, far away from here like every rational part of his being was screaming at him to, but to walk down the dock toward that flag lapping at the darkening clouds like a parched beast at a mud puddle, his Captain’s name on his own tongue, the salty ocean breeze drying the ghosts of tears on his cheeks.
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