Short story originally published in Unlikely Stories Mark V (2024).
1.
Fred wiped away a tear when he answered his phone.
“Mother?”
She was the first person he talked to today, but he stumbled through with a yes here, an OK there.
“My suit’s just fine. It’s black.” As he paced up and down, he swiped his fingers against his fantasy books collection, carefully skipping over Dad’s picture on the bookshelf.
“No Fred. It’s too old,” his mother said.
He pried an old copy of Tolkien from the shelves – the one Dad read in his childhood.
“Mother…” he said.
“You’re just like your father was. I already ordered one. It’ll be in the store the day after tomorrow.”
“But mother-”
“I want us to look good for the funeral.”
The funeral. Fred stopped moving. “How are you holding up?”
Mother breathed heavily. “I’m fine…”
“Remember our holidays?” he blurted out. “And Dad would always play the same song as we drove away early in the morning?”
“Yes…”
“Good morning. Good morning.” Fred paced up and down again, gesticulating wildly with his free hand on the rhythm.
“Fred-”
“Good morning. Good morning.”
“You’re anxious, Fred. What is it?”
Fred let out a deep breath. “Will… will we have protective measures in place?”
Mother sighed. “Fred… We… I stopped masking.”
Fred clenched his phone. “But the pandemic… There’s still a pandemic.”
“Everybody’s saying it’s over.”
“Well, just look at the stats. The hospitalizations-”
“Fred…” Mother sobbed. “I know. But life goes on.”
Fred’s miniature models shook as he kicked against the table. “There’s still the ten percent chance of becoming chronically ill if you get it. Ten percent! Ten!”
“I’ll take the risk…”
“Just so you know, I’ll be wearing my mask.”
“Fred… I understand that you think it’s scary, but think of the others. They don’t want to be reminded of the pandemic there.”
“Well…” Fred’s red mustache quivered from his heavy breaths. “You do you.”
“Especially since Dad died of it.”
“That’s what I mean. How on earth can we not-”
“People will think you’re weird if you wear one.” Mother cried again. “You know I love you… Oh, haven’t you learned not to be so rigid by now?”
“The others are weird.” Fred felt the urge to smash his phone against the wall. “I’m not giving up my mask.”
Mother paused a while. Finally, she sighed. “I’m still getting over the fact that you weren’t there when he died.”
2.
Fred couldn’t help but pace around his living room. With his mother hanging up on him like that, he couldn’t even defend himself against her charge. Couldn’t tell her yet again that the hospital presented a huge infection risk, and that everybody has to make sacrifices during a pandemic. Repeat the ten percent figure to her. Ten percent! Why did she act like it was over? He wanted to rant to somebody, anybody. But standing alone in his living room, he knew nobody listened.
To keep his thoughts from spinning out of control, he pulled his magnifier close by, and rummaged through the mess of miniature models on his table. Orcs, elves, dwarfs, humans. Some of them brightly colored, others just a dull gray. He picked up a wizard he had wanted to paint for ages now. Soon the outside world disappeared from his mind, the one where all the masses oblivious to disease went about their day. At first, he felt the urge to shout at them about the stats. But soon he got into the minutiae of getting the wizard’s blue mantle just right.
He couldn’t wait to put his army to the test at the game store the day the pandemic would really be over. The last time he went must have been over three years ago. He still remembered the tight finale, with everyone clustered around him, and Steve, and that one unlucky roll that made his buddy there take the victory. Although Fred hated losing, he still shook Steve’s hand. They all ate take-out and argued about the different editions. He even hugged Steve as they parted ways, something Fred rarely did.
He got up to get a coffee.
It must’ve been twenty years ago, when after some nagging, Fred got his own miniature to paint together with Dad. He tried to listen to his father’s advice on how to hold the brush, how to go step by step over each part. A photo of that moment still adorned the staircase at his parent’s place. Fred’s big blue eyes behind a dwarf, his curly red hair sprawling all over. Mother’s favorite picture of him.
But the entire class laughed in his face when he brought his first painted miniature to show and tell day. Dwarves don’t wear purple robes, the other kids told him. Especially when Fred couldn’t yet paint within the lines. He came home crying, but Dad laughed it off, and took Fred with him to his game night in the basement. Dad’s friends all liked his dwarf. They couldn’t wait to see how much better he would get at painting them.
He could sit on Dad’s lap as they played. Although he didn’t understand what the pictures on the dice meant, he felt important for throwing them, and fancied himself one of the guys, as Dad’s friends cheered on every roll he made.
Dad called his basement his safe haven.
“Son,” he used to say, “we all need a place to get back to ourselves.”
Fred felt grateful his father helped him find such a place of his own. People of his own.
The game store. Three years. Three years.
“Ouch!”
Fred’s coffee splashed on the floor as he grabbed his foot. A dwarf pierced through it, coloring his white sock red.
“How the HELL did this get here?”
He pulled out the bloodied dwarf and threw it at the wall.
3.
Fred walked through the park with the wrapped suit mother had paid for under his arms, sweating profusely in his bulbous jacket with lumberjack print. He always had trouble knowing when to switch from winter to summer attire, and this early spring was no different.
Some guy pushing a stroller passed him by. Fred tweaked the bushy red mustache sprawling out from underneath his mask. He couldn’t believe he was the only one left still wearing one.
“Fred!” the guy shouted.
The voice sounded familiar. Fred turned around. Steve wore flip-flops instead of his usual black leather shoes. He smiled so openly Fred could’ve counted the white teeth, enclosed by a black beard.
“Oh my God,” Fred said. “You have kids?”
Steve laughed. “Nice to see you too. Yes, say hi to Samantha.”
Fred peered at the sleeping baby’s bloated face and her onesie that read ‘level zero human’.
He snickered. “Nice.”
“Thanks. So how are you doing man? Long time, no see.”
“Fine. My army… I got all this paint. It’s going well.”
“So, are we going to see you again then? We could use an extra player in the store.”
Fred clenched the suit. Its plastic wrapping rustled. “It’s not a good idea right now.”
“Oh man, why?” Steve pointed at Fred’s face. “Because of-”
“Yes.”
Steve scratched his beard. “Man, isn’t that a bit too… hardcore, you know?”
“The hospitals are filling up again. It’s still a thing.”
“You’re scared of getting it?”
Fred unzipped his jacket. His mask didn’t stop a whiff of his sweat from reaching his nostrils. “Why would I want to have it?”
“I mean, it was weird man, the first time I went back to game night. But you know, we’ve got to get on with our lives.”
“My father…” Fred pulled at the ends of his mustache. “My father died of it.”
Steve walked up to Fred. “Oh God… Man… I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.”
“Look, if you want some distraction, us guys are always there for you. Just come along tonight.” Steve paused. “You can bring your mask with you if that’d make you comfortable.”
“And the ventilation? And the air filtration?”
Steve stroked his beard all over.
“There’s still a pandemic. My father died of it. We shouldn’t slack off. We’ve got to stay vigilant,” Fred continued.
“Man, your dad dying on you sucks. But don’t let it get to you like that, man.”
“It does suck.” Fred swallowed his bout of sadness like a sip of water.
“You know, like I said, some distraction would do you good. Help you to move on.”
Samantha sputtered. Steve softly rocked the stroller. “Maybe a bit out there to compare, but we didn’t wait having a kid.”
That baby would probably get it about ten times before she graduates from high school. Did Steve even realize this? Fred searched for a delicate way to put it, but ended up scratching his wet head.
Samantha broke the silence with a wail.
“Back to work, I guess,” Steve said.
She would get it ten times. Ten times. Fred couldn’t shake the thought. Maybe she wouldn’t even graduate from high school. She might become chronically ill because of it, incapable of attending or learning. Or Steve would die. Her father might die on her.
Steve lifted Samantha and raised her little hand. “Oh come, come, sweetie. Say hi to Fred.”
Fred waved at her. Would Steve send her to school unprotected in a few year’s time?
“Hi Fred,” Steve said with a childish voice, moving Samantha’s hand.
Fred snorted. Ten times. “I’ve got to go. See you around.”
He continued his walk.
“Fred! See you tonight?” Steve asked.
Back home, Fred threw the suit on the floor. He stared at his miniatures and cried.
4.
Fred felt like thousands of eyes pierced his back in the mall. But he couldn’t come to the funeral without flowers, so he had to brave the masses, mask up, and tell himself people just didn’t know any better. They weren’t worth his time.
Like his classmates back in primary school.
“Son,” his father said to him back then, “don’t let ‘em get to you.”
Dad told him his classmates were suckers that didn’t know how to have fun, after Fred came home crying from show and tell day. So that’s what Fred told them the next time, when he brought his second botched miniature. If he remembered correctly, it was a yellow elf.
“Son, don’t let ‘em get to you.”
Going past the game store, Fred wondered if Steve had told the others about them meeting in the park. Would he mention the mask? The hell with them, if they’d have a laugh about it, or shake their heads in disbelief.
At least the young cashier in the small florist he entered, seemed more occupied with her phone than with his mask.
“Good morning,” Fred mumbled.
Her straw-like blonde hairs hid most of her face, save for her perky nose. If she had even acknowledged his presence, no doubt she would have rolled her eyes at the sight of him. Or maybe she ignored him precisely because of his mask. The hell with her then, if she’d not even uphold the most basic of manners, just because she thinks that he’s weird.
“Son, don’t let ‘em get to you.”
As Fred browsed the shop, he tried to remember his father’s favorite color. But he just couldn’t think of it. He pictured Dad outside on the front porch, the last few times they met, and felt he owed him an apology. How Fred had shouted at Dad not to go out, but Dad kept on meeting his old group he’d known for thirty years. And now Fred couldn’t even pick the perfect bouquet.
He went past the flowers a third time. Fred always tarried in the game store, when Dad would buy him a miniature. One time, he mulled over the many options present for half an hour, not being able to settle for a wizard or barbarian. It was one of the few times Fred saw his father annoyed.
“Son,” Dad finally said, “if you keep on mulling over what to pick, you’ll always end up with regret.”
Always end up with regret. A first impression beats thinking it over. When he came into the store, simple white roses immediately tickled his fancy. He grabbed a bouquet of those, and knocked on the wooden counter.
“Good morning,” he said again.
The cashier swiped something on her phone, put it down, and slid part of her hair past her right ear. “Hi…”
Silently she scanned the bouquet, sluggish, as if the flowers were filth. She half-closed her one visible eye, and let out a drawn-out sigh, followed by a yawn, like she didn’t want to be here with Fred. It must be because of his mask. Nobody likes it. Surely she disapproved of his decision to protect himself. Why else would she act this way? Yet Fred couldn’t believe his own conclusion. Wouldn’t it be better for business to just stay friendly to all? They don’t need to act like they’re probably doing at the game store, if Fred would show up.
To distract himself from his ruminations, he glanced at her name tag. Daisy.
“Uhm, receipt?” Daisy asked. She sounded like a customer training had pressured her to always ask this, when she’d rather not.
“Yes, I wear a face mask,” Fred said.
“Uhm, okay.” Daisy closed her eyes as she pulled her earring and slowly blew air.
“What’s that to you?”
“Sir, I-”
“I’m trying to protect myself.” Fred swiped his card fast past the terminal. It returned an error. “Deal with it.”
“You-”
“Some people want to protect themselves… Daisy.” Fred swiped again.
“Sir… I’m tired…” Daisy put a torn receipt on the counter. “I’m having a bad day.”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Daisy stared down. “I know…”
“What the world does revolve around, is keeping each other safe during a goddamn pandemic.”
A tear wet the crumbled receipt. “Sir, please-”
“You selfish brat.” Fred stormed out.
5.
Fred barreled past the game store, rushing passersby maneuvering around him just in time. After he came too close to collision with one of the mask-less, he stopped and sat down near the fountain.
A bit further a little girl played pretend pilot on an airplane kiddie ride.
Fred never played pretend pilot when he was young. He didn’t need machines as a brave knight. Dad was his horse, and random sticks in the forest his lance or sword. At one of his birthday parties, Fred refused to kill the dragon, explaining to his laughing father how he felt pity for the monster. Instead, he tried to nick the chocolate treasure it guarded through cunning and stealth. His classmates hadn’t shown up, even when Fred advertised it as being the most exciting adventure they would ever embark upon. At least Dad’s oldest brother Uncle Tim and Aunt Emma dropped by, and Fred’s cousins were in awe of his bravery sneaking past the dragon, played by Uncle Tim.
The little girl’s father chuckled as she cheered. “Brace for landing!”
Fred thought of Steve and Samantha. He had waved at the baby the bare minimum of time. Samantha had stared at him with her big eyes. No matter how brief, he had smiled at her as his own father must’ve smiled at baby Fred. But she couldn’t have seen it, his smile hidden behind his mask. He put one hand in his pocket and felt the wet receipt. Samantha probably hadn’t learned what anger was just yet.
The kiddie ride stood in front of a chocolatier. Fred laughed. After nicking the chocolate treasure, he and his cousins had stuffed their mouths with it.
6.
The tinkling bell didn’t shake Daisy after Fred entered the florist again. He tramped to the counter, over which she lay in sleeping position.
“Excuse me miss,” he said.
She looked up in tears. “Go away! Please.”
“Here…” Fred tossed a ribboned box of pralines on the counter. “For you.”
Daisy sniffled. “Uhm… what?” She blinked her eyes rapidly, readjusting her hair.
Fred twirled the ends of his mustache. His mask moved a tad along with the motions.
“In two hours, I’ll put these flowers on my father’s grave before he goes into the ground.” Fred inhaled audibly. “And that’s not your fault.”
Daisy gasped. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“No,” Fred said. “I’m sorry.”
7.
As he joined the indoors wake, Fred assured himself that his black mask was all right. It shouldn’t be any different from every other time he wore one in public spaces, he thought, as he clicked the nose clip shut. And if anyone wants to make a scene, that’s on them. His father would be proud of him, sticking to his guns.
Mother called him from the coffin’s side. “Fred!” She covered her mouth with a black gloved hand.
He held his bouquet of white roses tight. On his way he shook Uncle Tim’s hand, and nodded to Aunt Emma, and some cousin whose name he’d forgotten. Uncle Tim mumbled something to Aunt Emma after Fred passed, but he couldn’t quite catch what they were on about, only that they dropped his name.
“Mother,” Fred said.
“Didn’t we talk about this?” mother whispered as they embraced.
“About what?”
“The mask of course.”
They let go.
“I won’t betray Dad like the rest of you,” Fred said. “We should all wear one, instead of getting sick like him.”
Uncle Tim joined them, and put his hand on Fred’s shoulder. “We’re not betraying anyone, Fred.”
“What’s he on about? We’re all vaccinated,” Aunt Emma muttered to herself as she joined as well.
“It’s so sad to see you isolate yourself like this,” Uncle Tim said.
Fred picked at the straps searing his neck and looked around. The small groups scattered in the hall mumbled among themselves. No one else had bothered wearing one.
Uncle Tim continued. “I think it’d do you good, if you’d remove your mask.”
“But we shouldn’t just-”
“And if I’m honest, it feels a little disrespectful to draw attention like this at your dad’s funeral.”
“I’m not asking for it.”
Uncle Tim shook his head.
“And I’m even wearing a black one,” Fred said, “because that actually is respectful for the occasion.”
Mother put her hand on Fred’s shoulder too. “But Fred-”
“No, I won’t take it off.”
Fred shook them loose. Mother walked to a seat, buried her head in her hands, and sobbed.
The small groups stopped mumbling.
“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” Uncle Tim said. “You’re making a scene.”
Fred almost squashed his white roses. “I’m not. It’s everyone else.”
“Really?” Uncle Tim said. “This is how you want to honor your father?”
Aunt Emma tried to hug Fred. Besides Uncle Tim and mother, she was the only one from whom he could tolerate that. This time he froze.
“Oh Fred, I know it’s hard. But maybe you can remove it just this once?” she said, quickly letting go of him.
“Just take it off man, nothing’s gonna happen,” a cousin in the back shouted.
Uncle Tim turned around. “You’re not helping!”
He patted Fred’s back. “Fred, don’t listen to him. I feel your pain too. The pandemic was an awful time.”
Fred sniffled.
“But we have to move on,” Uncle Tim said. “Your father would’ve liked to see that too.”
Fred let Uncle Tim guide him to his father’s coffin, where he laid down the white roses. There Dad lay, his wrinkled hands neatly folded on his belly, dressed in his favorite suit he always wore on Christmas Eve, gray curled hairs that once shone brightly blonde in the sunlight.
How could it be over when someone just died?
“Son,” his father once said to him, “to err is to grow.”
It took a while before Fred finally got his first miniature painted within the lines. But Dad thought that it was perfectly fine to try things out and not get it right at first. That his classmates couldn’t understand such a simple truth made them even bigger suckers than just hating the fun of creation.
To err is to grow.
Was wearing a mask a mistake too?
Fred learned to laugh back at the class whenever they made fun of his quirks, his Dad and his friends in the back of his mind, who always cheered him on in the basement.
“We all goof up sometimes!” he told the suckers, holding his yellow elf up high.
At the game store – at least three years ago – they didn’t mind mistakes, as long as it’d lead to some good discussion on strategy. Which it inevitably did.
A mask wouldn’t. Fred choked and pulled at the straps of his. He hadn’t had fun in a long time. Was he a sucker now? Maybe he should take off his mask? And laugh off the mistake, like he used to do. But was it even a mistake?
“Son, to err is to grow,” his father’s voice rang.
Fred thought of Daisy. It would’ve hurt Dad, to see Fred rage like that against someone. Maybe it was time to move on? But all those hospital cases? All those other fathers who would continue to die? All those other people who would become chronically ill after an infection? Children even.
To err is to grow.
Fred shook. He embraced Uncle Tim and cried.
“It’s all right, everything’s going to be all right,” Uncle Tim said.
To err is to grow.
Fred turned to see his father again. Dad’s hands. Dad’s closed eyes. The serene look on his face.
Fred stepped up to him.
“Goodbye, Dad,” he said. “Goodbye.”
“Son, to err is to grow,” he could hear Dad say.
People will continue to die in spades, Fred thought. But there’s nothing he could do about that.
Fred cried again. He sighed deeply, blubbered, and removed his mask. He stared at the piece of cloth in his hands, breathing freely. The mask whirled down to land near Dad’s hands in the coffin. It, too, would rest forever in peace.
“Goodbye,” Fred said.
It was the right thing to do. He couldn’t wait to put his new army to the test next week.