(…) “For dinner Jade microwaves some Stars-n-Flags. They’re addictive. They put sugar in the sauce and sugar in the meat nuggets. I think also caffeine. Someone told me the brown streaks in the Flags are caffeine. We have like five bowls each.
After dinner the babies get fussy and Min puts a mush of ice cream and Hershey’s syrup in their bottles and we watch The Worst That Could Happen, a half-hour of computer simulations of tragedies that have never actually occurred but theoretically could. A kid gets hit by a train and flies into a zoo, where he’s eaten by wolves. A man cuts his hand off chopping wood and while wandering around screaming for help is picked up by a tornado and dropped on a preschool during recess and lands on a pregnant teacher.
“I miss Bernie so bad,” says Min.
“Me too,” Jade says sadly.
The babies start howling for more ice cream.
“That is so cute,” says Jade. “They’re like, Give it the fuck up!”
“We’ll give it the fuck up, sweeties, don’t worry,” says Min. “We didn’t forget about you.”
Then the phone rings. It’s Father Brian. He sounds weird. He says he’s sorry to bother us so late. But something strange has happened. Something bad. Something sort of, you know, unspeakable. Am I sitting? I’m not but I say I am.
Apparently someone has defaced Bernie’s grave.
My first thought is there’s no stone. It’s just grass. How do you deface grass? What did they do, pee on the grass on the grave? But Father’s nearly in tears.
So I call Ma and Freddie and tell them to meet us, and we get the babies up and load them into the K-car.
“Deface,” says Jade on the way over. “What does that mean, deface?”
“It means like fucked it up,” says Min.
“But how?” says Jade. “I mean, like what did they do?”
“We don’t know, dumbass,” says Min. “That’s why we’re going there.”
“And why?” says Jade. “Why would someone do that?”
“Check out Miss Shreelock Holmes,” says Min. “Someone done that because someone is a asshole.”
“Someone is a big-time asshole,” says Jade.
Father Brian meets us at the gate with a flashlight and a golf cart.
“When I saw this,” he says.” I literally sat down in astonishment. Nothing like this has ever happened here. I am so sorry. You seem like nice people.”
We’re too heavy and the wheels spin as we climb the hill, so I get out and jog alongside.
“Okay, folks, brace yourselves,” Father says, and shuts off the engine.
Where the grave used to be is just a hole. Inside the hole is the Amber Mist, with the top missing. Inside the Amber Mist is nothing. No Aunt Bernie.
“What the hell,” says Jade. “Where’s Bernie?”
“Somebody stole Bernie?” says Min.” (…)

aus: Sea Oak, George Saunders.

Die komplette Story steht netterweise hier, und ich habe sie in einer sehr schönen Anthologie names The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories gelesen. Eine Buchkritik von Salon findet ihr hier (für ein bisschen Werbung gucken).