‘Shayna’s Eulogy’ by Kate Felix

Of Love and Loss

Winner of the 2020 Bumblebee Flash Fiction Contest, ‘Shayna’s Eulogy’ by Kate Felix cuts straight to the heart of grief. Described by judge Bob Thurber as outstanding, it is a raw and unfiltered portrait of mourning. Excerpted here, from Issue 27, Summer 2020, this Bumblebee winner offers a sweet sting all its own.

And for a chance to have your work featured in our magazine and on the website, enter the 2020 Raven Short Story Contest before it closes 15 October!

Shayna’s Eulogy

by Kate Felix 

I’m wearing goth boots and ripped netters because screw you, sister, I won’t dress down for your funeral. 

Your mom is up there at the podium in her good dress.  You know the one? Kool-Aid purple, three sizes too small? Remember it from when she used to go down to Hot Rocks to see if she could score you a new stepdad? 

From the way she’s going on, you’d think you and the baby Jesus were separated at birth.  Get this one: “Shayna was always the first one in line to help out a friend.” Yeah.  Like the time we took the dirt bikes onto the golf course — one hundred percent your idea — and when the cops came you started crying and blamed the whole shit-pile on me?  First in line, my ass. 

She goes on about your bright eyes and shy smile like you were one of those apple-chewing brats on top of the fence post from her mother’s fancy plate collection.  Norman Rockwell special, that’s you. 

Right. 

Like you never hung around with me and Orienta Esposito in the culvert drinking her uncle’s Christmas rum from a mayonnaise jar? Like you never ran interference while I lifted a couple of packs from behind the counter at Kang’s? Like you woke up every morning with the sun shining out from the backside of your painted-on jeans and never once called me up, high as Winehouse, at seven in the morning just to tell me how life is one big flaming joke? 

How about that last time your mom came down to the ER and asked you how come if you wanted to die so bad you didn’t just go ahead and do it? Not telling that story, is she?

To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Pulp Literature Issue 27, Summer 2020!

And, for a chance at the $300 top prize, submit to the 2020 Raven Short Story Contest!

Kate Felix (She/Her) is a writer and filmmaker based in Toronto. Her work has appeared in Room Magazine, Litro, and Cream City Review, among others. Her feminist short films have been selected for over fifty independent film festivals worldwide and have won numerous film-making and screenwriting awards. Her small daughter describes her as being ‘like a rainbow but with one stripe made of darkness’. Find her online at katefelix.com or @kitty_flash on twitter.