New Tales Told – Original Short Stories
Sep 15, 2026 · 13 min · 7 segments
An obituary arrives in the mail, folded in thirds, no note, no return address, and the creases are sharp enough to cut with. Roy Kittleson has not seen the man named in it since a Friday in 1986, and…
It came in the mail on a Tuesday, folded in thirds, no note, no return address, a printed page, the whole thing.
The funeral home's web address running along the bottom in gray type with the date it had been printed, which was the same day it went up.
Somebody had folded it on a hard surface.
The creases were sharp enough to cut with.
Dale Rasmussen, it said, 81, survived by his wife of 53 years, June.
Roy Kittleson read it four times, standing at the counter with his coat still on.
His name and address were on the envelope in blue ballpoint, pressed so hard the letters stood up on the back like a rash.
He put it in the glove box of his truck, which was where he kept things he did not intend to think about.
He had not seen Dale Rasmussen for 40 years.
He had last seen him on a Friday in 1986, in the parking lot of a tool and dye shop on Delaware Street, carrying a cardboard box, because Roy had told the foreman a lie that was easier than the truth, and Dale was the one it landed on.
Roy had not corrected it that day, and then he had not corrected it for 40 years.
which is a thing you can do, it turns out, if you are willing to move once and change your phone number.
He drove up on Saturday.
Three hours.
Most of it flat.
A stretch of highway where the radio gave out and came back as a preacher.
Gave out again, came back as a man selling gutters.
He stopped once for coffee, and once because he had drunk the coffee.
He was 67 and had learned to schedule his life around that fact the way a farmer schedules around rain.
Vander Molen and Sons had a lot with a nice new asphalt seal on it.
It came in the mail on a Tuesday, folded in thirds, no note, no return address, a printed page, the whole thing.
The funeral home's web address running along the bottom in gray type with the date it had been printed, which was the same day it went up.
Somebody had folded it on a hard surface.
The creases were sharp enough to cut with.
Dale Rasmussen, it said, 81, survived by his wife of 53 years, June.
Roy Kittleson read it four times, standing at the counter with his coat still on.
His name and address were on the envelope in blue ballpoint, pressed so hard the letters stood up on the back like a rash.
He put it in the glove box of his truck, which was where he kept things he did not intend to think about.
He had not seen Dale Rasmussen for 40 years.
He had last seen him on a Friday in 1986, in the parking lot of a tool and dye shop on Delaware Street, carrying a cardboard box, because Roy had told the foreman a lie that was easier than the truth, and Dale was the one it landed on.
Roy had not corrected it that day, and then he had not corrected it for 40 years.
which is a thing you can do, it turns out, if you are willing to move once and change your phone number.
He drove up on Saturday.
Three hours.
Most of it flat.
A stretch of highway where the radio gave out and came back as a preacher.
Gave out again, came back as a man selling gutters.
He stopped once for coffee, and once because he had drunk the coffee.
He was 67 and had learned to schedule his life around that fact the way a farmer schedules around rain.
Vander Molen and Sons had a lot with a nice new asphalt seal on it.
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