First place winner of the Summer
Surprises Contest, written
by Phoberos

In the summertime I air my coffin, because I can't stand that musty smell of winter. 

You see, it gets mighty cold under the earth when it's heavy with snow and those beds of everlasting slumber are not exactly well isolated. All the stench and those dark thoughts wasted during those months of bone-freezing cold just soak into the cushions. 

I'd air it in the spring, after a very thorough spring-cleaning, but, you see, spring's when everything comes back to life and all those worms and bugs that dug their winter-homes above me spark back to functioning and settle in the wood and pillows because of the warmth I fought so hard to keep in. And, frankly, they don't smell that much better. 

So, I air my coffin in the summer. When the bugs and worms are lazy and fat from the rich grass. I leave the lid open when I sleep and I breathe in that thick smell of wet soil and life at its peak.

You see it down here, how the seasons celebrate their high-time and catapult life and happiness into every corner. All the other skeletons and decomposing bodies you see when you go grocery shopping for example, they just get really excited about how big the roots are this year. 

They form a see-through circle in front of the inconvenience store and flash the brightest of toothy smiles at each other, eye sockets sparkling with glee. And then everybody starts complaining about dead mosquitoes, because up and about they swat tons of them during the months of late summer. 

It was one of those mornings, I was buying bug-life spray and shaking my head about the circle of dead people outside who were all gawking up and admiring the bottoms of some radishes, and that's when I saw her. 

To the present day I have never seen a skeleton more beautiful than her. Her bones were that shiny, rough yellowy white that looked so much less decayed in the sunlight, the rotting flower she had placed attentively right where her skull had been caved in, a few remaining strands of hair fluttering in the breeze.

I would have died of a heart-attack if it wasn't for the obvious. Upstairs, I hear, it's not a problem anymore. People are embracing it when a woman likes a woman, but I am a very old lady, you see, my bones come from a time long passed. 

So when I lie here in my well-aired coffin and dream about those beautiful eye-sockets, I feel sorry for myself. And the bug on my forehead does not help the feeling. I reach up and pick it up, watch its little legs paddle while I toss it away. I can't see it fall, because two bony arms are placed on my coffin's edge, the shiniest of dying white. And I gawk. 

"I saw you looking," she says while a dead mosquito buzzes right through the moment, "surprise." 

And her teeth meet mine.