Deathbed

On her deathbed, Simon's mother asked for pickles. "I am about to go meet my maker, but I am hungry. Please. Before I die, can you make sure I have one final meal of pickles?"

Simon held her hand, it was frail as a bird, and he promised that he would fulfill her dying wish. "I will get you those pickles, ma. If it's the last thing I do, I'll get those pickles."

Their ancestors--the Schlorpheims--had fled their home country carrying nothing but what they managed to grab from their pantry: cucumbers and a bottle of vinegar. Since then they had become the third-largest pickle manufacturers in the Northeast. SchlorPickles, their brand, had won Best Pickle at the Vermont State Fair in 1991 and for decades they had been living off that high.

In the hospital corridor, Simon spotted his cousin Vinny. He was fired from the family company when his idea of pickled toast failed to gain traction. "Out of my way, Vin. Ma needs pickles. It's a matter of life and death. But mostly death."

Sucking on a piece of pickled toast, Vinny said, "I hope the old hag dies screaming. She took my hopes and dreams and she plopped them into a jar of vinegar."

Simon sneered. "That would've preserved them, you dolt. Outta my way."

"Indeed," Vinny said. "My ambitions are now far grander than you can imagine." He turned around, putting his tight derrière on display. In his back pocket was a jar. A jar with pickles. "I have perfected the family recipe. And I'm going to start my own company. I'll run you scumbags outta business."

"Gimme that!"

"Never."

The first punch broke Vinny's nose. The second one knocked the air out of his lungs. The third went straight through his chest. "W-What?"

"Ugh! I have been gradually replacing my body fluids with pickle brine. I guess I overdid it and turned my guts into mush."

"Vinny! Hold on! I'll get you to a hospital."

"We are already ... in a hospital." Vinny struggled for breath. "Please ... I have little time left. Feed me."

"What?"

"Feed me the pickles."

Simon's hand was still inside his cousin Vinny, so he shoved it in deeper and extracted the jar from his pocket. When he pulled it out, it schlorped audibly. "Your guts are green, Vin. What the heck. Okay, now open wide."

But it was too late. Vinny was already gone.

As he stood looking at his mushed-up relative, he quickly snapped out of it when he saw the glass bottle in his hand. "Pickled raisins? Vin, you fool!"

"They are good actually. So. Screw you, man."

Turning around, Simon saw none other than Vinny. But with a halo and fluffy wings.

"Yeah, I'm an angel now actually," said Vinny. "So maybe you were kind of a douchebag for murdering me and whatnot?"

"This can't be real," cried Simon. That was when he received the first slap. With his own hand.

"Oh shit," said Vinny. "I guess I have like superpowers now? I didn't know that. Angels have telekinesis? Wow."

"Stop!" Simon moaned in pain with every slap.

"Yeah, you should stop hitting yourself. What's up with that?"

With every slap, his hands got wetter. He remembered, suddenly, an incident in the park when he was a child. A skater called him a loser because he didn't know how to do any tricks. But it was his first time. He just wanted to play with them. Then his mother stepped up, and she handed out pickles to all of them. And they said, "Wow. With pickles like that you must be a pretty cool guy. Wanna be friends?"

"I wonder if I can make you fart? Can you move air with telekinesis?"

Simon's stomach rumbled. "Please, Vin. You're better than this. Aren't angels supposed to be nice?"

"Nah, that's called the halo effect. You only think I'm supposed to be good because I've got a halo."

Darn. He was right.

"W-What are you doing?" A doctor ran up to them, waving his arms around. "Did you murder that guy on the floor? And now you're slapping yourself with one hand, and in the other you are holding ... pickles?"

Vinny let out a sly chuckle. "Oh, shit. Guess you're the only one who can see me. I'm gonna make you flip him the bird. He's going to think you're such an asshole."

"No!" Simon cried. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. Without meaning to, he gently lifted his hand and lowered all his fingers but the middle one. Tear-choked, he said, "Sorry."

The doctor seemed frightened.

"Oh, wait. Hold up. The big guy wants a word."

With that, Vinny vanished in a puff of smoke.

"I'm calling the police!" said the doctor.

Simon gulped. He'd landed himself in quite the pickle.

"Wait! His stomach just suddenly exploded. I didn't do anything."

"Hmm." The doctor appeared skeptical. "Well, his guts are kind of green. I guess that checks out. Alright. I'll get someone to clean this up."

"Phew."

He was nervous about going back into his mother's room with the pickled raisins. What if they were no good? How could they be good? They were pickled raisins.

As he stepped inside, he felt a cool breeze on his shoulders. It was Vinny.

"Alright, the big dude was sort of upset with the way I acted. Apparently, I reminded him of a certain someone who was kind of a crappy angel and he threatened he'd make me hang out with him if I didn't make up for what I did."

"What are you saying?"

"You didn't hear me?"

"No, I mean, how are you going to make up?"

"Oh. Right. Heaven's kind of a cool place, actually. Everyone gets to choose a power. They start off with something random. I changed mine to transmogrification."

"What's that?"

"Well, it goes a little something like this." Vinny snapped his fingers and the bottle of pickled raisins turned into a bottle containing a slice of rolled-up toast.

"Uh, thanks," said Simon. "But I can't give this to ma."

"That was just a demonstration. Here." He snapped his fingers again, and the toast turned into cucumbers. Solid pickles. "Turns out he let his son use angel powers all the time when he was still human. That was what miracles was all about. That's a neat factoid, right?"

It was a neat factoid. "Thank you, Vin. Sorry about the whole killing-you-with-a-mediocre-punch business."

"Don't worry about it. Turns out pickle juice isn't all that good if you overdo it. Lesson learned. Take that piece of wisdom with you. Don't make the same mistake I did."

"I don't drink pickle brine."

"Not anymore, you don't." An angelic grin spread across Vinny's heavenly lips, and he departed in a puff of smoke.

"Ma," Simon said. "Ma, I brought you the pickles."

"Oh, how wonderful," his mother said. They shared the meal of pickles and sat up for a while talking.

With her last breath, she let out a meek sigh of happiness.

Simon later became the president of the family company, and he launched a new product to honor his cousin's memory: pickled raisins.

It didn't sell very well, and they fired him.

*****

THE END.