It was six o’clock on Friday evening, which meant the village library was open. I was in the early stages of designing a coat of arms and I had The Complete Book of Heraldry to collect. It took two or three minutes to cycle there from the workshop.
‘We’ve just had a Lego day,’ the librarian said. ‘It was absolute bloomin’ chaos.’
The librarian’s name was Anna. She was in her late thirties, had kind eyes and she wore the sort of clothes I’d wear if I was a woman. Today she was wearing a pair of green corduroy dungarees and orange boots and a colourful beaded necklace made with brown twine. She had a hint of a Welsh accent that always made me feel closer to home.
‘I need ideas for Moon’s obituary,’ I said.
‘No! Moon died?’
‘No.’
‘Is he sick?’
‘He seems perfectly fine to me. I’m just thinking ahead. I want to make sure I get it right and get
his approval in case he does, you know, croak it.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Forty-nine. I’d
thought of the line: ‘First and foremost, Edmund Moon was a dedicated family
man.’’
‘Aww, that’s nice!’
‘He hated it. He
pulled a face.’
‘Why?’
‘He doesn’t like the fourth, the eighth, the ninth and the tenth
word so I’m thinking of scrapping the whole sentence altogether.’
‘What’s wrong with ‘Edmund’?
What’s wrong with ‘man’?’
‘He hates the name Edmund.
And I don’t know why he doesn’t like ‘man’ – it seems perfectly
reasonable to me.’
‘Did he say what he does want?’
‘Well, he was carving a Labrador when I asked him. He stopped, thought about it for a minute and
then said: ‘Everyone in the village agreed that e. Moon was a charlatan, a
drunk and an utter, utter scoundrel.’ He then added, ‘Don’t change a word, and
make sure the e is in lower case.’ He nodded in satisfaction and then returned
to his Labrador.’
‘Moon is a very nice man.’
‘I know that. I even
think he knows that. He’s just adverse
to any part of his obituary being true.’
‘And that’s his right.’
‘Is it?’ I said.
‘I think so. It’d make
it memorable, and very few obituaries are.
Everyone knows he’s not any of those things so why not have a bit of fun
with it?’
‘He said later that he wants to be reincarnated as a Land
Rover. Specifically, a V8 Pickup. I’ve got no idea how I’m going to weave that
in, but it seemed a detail he considered important enough to mention.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got a bit of a job on your hands. What’s he going to want on his headstone?’
‘Massive can of worms. I’m staying out of that one. He can design and carve that himself.’
I found a piece of Lego on the floor and exchanged it for The Complete Book of Heraldry. I thanked Anna and texted Moon as I was cycling home.
Obituary idea aborted. May you live for a thousand years.
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