“Well, you know, Elie, the idea of closure is pretty much a fantasy,” said the skeleton of my father.  “I mean, it happens once in a while, I’m sure, but it’s so often featured in popular drama that we’re led to believe it’s something to expect.  Closure is like hitting the perfect bullseye in a darkened room, it’s the dazzling exception, not the rule.   At least that was always my experience.  If you’re looking for closure here, you may be at this for the rest of your life.”   

He had a point.   

“I know you’d rather continue this conversation than do the hard work ahead of you to get paid, get this book finished and out into the world.  I don’t blame you for that– though, of course, when I was alive I’d have been the first to give you shit about your inability to finish your project.   And having a long history of incomplete or failed projects, it would have stung you like a squadron of angry wasps.   I’m not going to do that, it’s not my point here.  Two years is not a long time to work on a first book, particularly as ambitious an undertaking as this one.”

That’s kind of you, dad.  Better late than never, I suppose, even if I do have to put the words into your mouth myself.   

“Well, that’s the way a lot of things work, Elie,” said the skeleton.  “Maybe that’s your closure right there, writing a better ending than life handed you.  Although, to be honest about it, I think our last conversation gave you a better ending than you yourself could have written.”   

It was a kind of closure, actually.   To be told, with virtually your last breaths, that I had been right, or at least trying to do the right thing, all along, while you’d been the angry adversary too frightened to be a human being.  Nice dramatic arc to that senseless struggle, eh?   

“I told you how much I regretted having seen everything as black and white, as a zero sum game.  It’s the worldview of a fucking moron.  I should have been smarter than that,” the skeleton shook his head on a rattly neck.

“Well, anyway Elie, we’ve got to wrap this up.  I’ll leave you with a very simple example of how easily anyone of our deadly conflicts could have been avoided.  Take our long bitter argument over whether people can change or not, obviously if I was not being an eternal two year-old, of course people can change, many things about themselves, we see it all the time. And of course, there are also inborn dispositions, innate talents and disabilities, a disposition to be unafraid, or easily deterred.  The tendency to get frustrated easily — you can learn to do better but the tendency will always be there, waiting for a moment of weakness. 

“It was idiotic of me to fight for some ridiculous absolute victory in a complex argument with a lot of validity on both sides, instead of just allowing for the human nuance that can, and should, be part of every intelligent exchange between two people.  You made some excellent points, I made some, why not take the best of the two points of view, learn from each other, instead of strafing and dropping bombs?” 

You’re preaching to the choir director, pops.

“So look, one tangible result of this long war we had, the history of our tormented family, the screaming atonal opera around the dinner table every night, is that this book you’re working on has to be a bestseller, in your mind, or you will have failed again.  Failed in telling my story, failed in doing something amazing and award-winning.    Hitler will have won, our large family massacred and consigned to the septic tank of history for nothing, no fucking McCarthur grant for you, genius boy.  That’s partly on me.”   

Not any more, dad.  You’re resting in peace now.  All that shit is on me, and I’ll take it.  Put it in a to-go bag, would you?   

“Taking it home to Whippie the Slave Dog, are you?” said the skeleton.

Yep. 

“Tahn-gah-NYEE-eekah!  Tuss-KEEEE-geee!   Brrrritish Emmm-pire!” said the skeleton, in an outburst of unfathomable glee. 

“You have stuff to add to this account, and even more to subtract, but, take a tip from a wise old skeleton and wait until you get your advance before you start that hard work.   You’ll have your hands full first just preparing a succulent enough slice to help you get an agent.”     

Righty-Oh.   

“Nighty night,” said the skeleton, with what could have been a wink.