Our friend Nathan thought some of our readers might be interested in "Unspoken (Or What is Said After Death)" by Naftali Moshe.
Nathan says "The basic idea is what do you wish you could have said to someone after you have left; some unspoken words that resonate in your head and it is too late to speak them. Then, imagine the ultimate leaving - death; what if you could speak those words after death. What if you could tell someone whom you loved dearly what you had not been able to say before."
It's the reverse of what people usually talk about - what they wished they had told someone who died. The story is written in the voice of a Kosher butcher who has commited suicide. A quote from Chapter 1:
My last breath, my last precious breath, was the freest breath since I was twelve. I stood in Ulysses' and Aeneas' waters. Like the Baal Shem Tov, I test the Wusthoff's edge with a finger; drew a drop of blood; shed a tear of joy and sadness.
Brief pain as the knife drew across the skin, my throat slipping slightly beneath its edge until the knife could catch, bite. Then through the trachea for that final, but decades delayed fresh breath. The carotids bathe the knife, then my hands in last warmth. The Mediterranean took me.
My son, unlike Abraham over Isaac, unlike God over Jesus, I will not sacrifice you. But through you I, I could breath again.
And now I can speak to you from this dream-ether.
The story is serialized in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Here's Chapter 1.
Here's Chapter 2.
