Uncle Colin<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Uncle Colin died while we were having pudding. Not a squeak, just toppled forward, face first into his plum crumble and custard.<\/p>\n
“I think Uncle Colin just died,” I said.<\/p>\n
Mum and Dad looked at Uncle Colin, then at each other.<\/p>\n
“Bloody hell, Mary,” Dad said, winking at me, “what was in that pudding?” He’d never much cared for Uncle Colin anyway.<\/p>\n
I got up and had a closer look.<\/p>\n
“Maybe he’s just sleeping,” I said. I felt for a pulse, and prodded him.<\/p>\n
“Definitely dead,” I said, sitting back down.<\/p>\n
“Maybe they were off,” Dad said. “The plums.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t think so,” Mum said. “I only just bought them yesterday. Two punnets for a pound.”<\/p>\n
“Two for a pound?” Dad said. “That’s not bad.”<\/p>\n
He turned to me. “I ever tell you, your gran, God bless her, used to make the best plum jam ever. Plum jam, gooseberry jam, apricot jam, all kinds of jam.”<\/p>\n
He got up and poured himself another coffee from the pot.<\/p>\n
He sipped the coffee, and looked at Uncle Colin.<\/p>\n
“We should probably do something with him,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mum nodded. Uncle Colin was her brother and they’d been close once, but that was a long time ago.<\/p>\n
“Maybe he was allergic,” Dad said. “To plums.”<\/p>\n
“Can you be allergic to plums?” Mum asked.<\/p>\n
Dad shrugged.<\/p>\n
“Maybe it was his ticker,” I said. “How old was he, Mum?”<\/p>\n
Mum thought about it for a bit, and said, “Fifty-eight, I think. Or fifty-nine. Something like that.”<\/p>\n
We buried him in the back garden, next to the cabbages.<\/p>\n
“You sure he was dead?” Mum asked, later, settling down for the late news.<\/p>\n
“Yes, I’m pretty sure,” I said.<\/p>\n
I got up. Looked out the window into the darkness. “I reckon he is now, anyway.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gary Duncan<\/strong> is a freelance writer and editor. His first book, “Bite-Size Northumberland”, is available on Amazon and at all good books shops.<\/p>\n*This story was first published in The Pygmy Giant\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Uncle Colin Uncle Colin died while we were having pudding. Not a squeak, just toppled forward, face first into his plum crumble and custard. “I think Uncle Colin just died,” I said. Mum and Dad looked at Uncle Colin, then at each other. “Bloody hell, Mary,” Dad said, winking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6715"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6719,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions\/6719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}