“I wonder where he’s going?” said Momma. I looked up from the floor to see what she was talking about. In the far distance a man walked towards our home.
“Who’s that Momma?” I asked.
“That’s Mr. Mason.” She said.
“I remember him!”
Mr. Mason was always so nice, he used to help out around the house all the time a few years ago. I stood up from the porch to run toward him.
“Don’t you move.” said Momma.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
“How strange,” said Momma. “How very strange.”
I turned to Momma and then turned back to Mr. Mason. He was dancing now. A funny, eccentric dance. I wanted to join him, he looked like he was having so much fun. “Momma can I dance with him?”
Momma said nothing. Mr. Mason continued to dance and move rhythmically towards the house.
“Very strange indeed.” said Momma.
“What’s so strange?” I asked.
Mr. Mason had almost reached our porch when Momma stood up and yelled “Go back to where ya’ came from now. We don’t want any trouble, you are not welcome here Mr. Mason. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME!” Just then slowly but surely Mr. Mason stopped, turned around and began dancing away from us.
“Momma,” I said “That was rude.”
Momma sat back down in her rocking chair, shook her head and hummed an old gospel song to herself.
“Well,” I said “I never knew that Mr. Mason could dance like that.”
Momma looked up at me and laughed, “Yeah he was always a good dancer and I would have let you go out there and dance with him to…if he were still alive.”
My heart almost dropped into my stomach. In a state of shock, I watched Mr. Mason dance all the way back to the graveyard.
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Rickey Rivers Jr lives in Mobile, Alabama. He mostly writes short stories and flash fiction. He has been published in everydayfiction and flashesinthedark.
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