This story was written in response to this month’s prompt in Fictionistas. If you are interested in the prompt, you can find it here. If you would like to read more stories based on this prompt, check out the comments in this thread post.
This story is a 2 minute read.
Audio of the story, read by the author:
UnLucky 13?
My mother always said Friday the 13th was good luck. She defied the masses who screamed otherwise. “Your father and I were married on Friday the 13th. How could I think it was anything but lucky?” she’d exclaim.
I had a reason to give her. I never did.
Dad died, Ma. It was on your 13th wedding anniversary, too. Denial is a strong, strong potion my mom drank up. Who was I to burst her bubble? So we continued in this way, denying the truth of the creepy 13th when we were together, while I lived in deep fear of it alone.
That is, of course, until the day I died. It was October 13, 2023, which was, as you can imagine, a Friday.
I’ve decided to haunt my mother this year. She doesn’t deserve it at all, I know this, but I died in a freak accident involving a flat tire on the way to my engagement party that she planned on Friday the 13th, so Lenny and I decided it’s something we deserve. Just for laughs.
Anyway, who knows? Maybe Mom will think she’s lucky to get a visit from her dead daughter and her dead almost-son-in-law. Then she can continue deluding herself into thinking Friday the 13th is the luckiest day of the year.
We don't know what her plans are for tomorrow, but as ghosts it doesn’t really matter. All we have to do is think of where we want to be or who we want to be with and there we are. We figured that out pretty early when we ended up together, Lenny and I. We never got the chance to get married before we died, but we figured out how to be together forever without all the trappings of the living world.
Come to think of it, we really lucked out.
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I used to be superstitious but am not so much anymore - but Friday the 13th was never a concern for me. I have friends and family members, though, who won't leave their homes on that day - they are terrified.