The Long Funeral of Mr. White

By Eugenio Prados

OVER 15,000 READERS HAVE ALREADY MET MR. WHITE.

Mr. White, a seventy-year-old man—rich and somewhat eccentric—faced with the sensation that his death draws near, decides to hire a secretary to record his last words.

What he cannot imagine is how difficult it will be to find this secretary.

A tale on the passage of time narrated with humor and a touch of nostalgia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eugenio Prados
• Release date: May 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533708779

Book preview

THE SECRET SHOP

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1

On the night of his seventieth birthday, Mr. White knew that his death was nigh. He sensed it as neither an objective nor a scientific fact—rather as a hunch, like a whisper from the afterworld telling him that his journey on earth had come to an end. He did not fear what had come over him; nor was his face cloaked in pallor. Rather, the thought urged him to act, and after placing a few shreds of tobacco in his pipe, he decided to put his nose to the grindstone and prepare for his imminent funeral.

As the cautious man as he was, Mr. White had envisioned that moment for some time now. He opened a desk drawer and took out a sheet on which he had written a list with the items that were to be ready upon his departure. For Mr. White, death was not so much knowing that one was going to die or what one was going to die of, but how. There was nothing that worried him more than losing his composure upon expiring, with dreadful jerks and desperate cries. Those ways of dying did not congeal with his personality. He wanted a clean and calm farewell, leaving behind everything in order (to the fullest extent) on earth to embrace Heaven unfettered.

Many of the items on that list were already in place. The casket, for instance, had been resting for two years in the crypt that he had ordered built in his magnificent home. He picked out the most luxurious one: the imperial model built of cedar, with golden handles and the family crest engraved on the lid.

He had also chosen the music that would be played when his body was carried to the crypt. After months of deliberation, he had decided that the piece would be the German Requiem by Johannes Brahms. It transported him to a world of peace and piety as few others did. It was solemn—but not creepy. The ideal piece so that the guests would attend his funeral, shed a few tears when it started and end up smiling when it was over, when the voices of the chorus rise above the music so angelically that they manage to move even the hardest of hearts.

The clothes he would wear, though, would be of the plainest. Although his lineage warranted a different kind of attire, he did not want to weigh himself down, on his final journey, with either expensive suits or old medals. A white shirt and black pants would suffice. He had chosen them precisely for the effect it would elicit in his guests. That humble garb, in contrast to the exuberance of the music and casket would lead everyone to feel sorrier for him than if they saw him stuffed into another kind of suit that exuded lavishness. He did not want to be remembered as the rest of his ancestors, as an old, stuffy noble. Besides, he hated when people addressed him with some of his titles of nobility. He wanted to be remembered as the elderly and venerable Mr. White. Nothing else.

He blushed while checking the list, sporting a wide grin