On the day he died, my father’s body was donated to a university medical school and for the next year, God knows what was done to him. The school had said he would likely be rotated through multiple campuses across the state, but how many times he was incised with a scalpel, bored into with a drill, stretched open with a clamp, or even split apart with a saw, like a fallen tree, will forever be a mystery. All my mother and I know is that whatever was left at the end of a year was cremated into sandy remains, poured into a thick plastic bag, and shipped inside a cardboard box to the front step of our house. For an hour, the box rested in stillness with the other dropped-off packages—Amazon, Lane Bryant—while the maple tree shadow leaned, the front yard grass rippled long and unmowed, the Irish setter across the street barked away at nothing. Then it was carried inside and stacked on the edge of the piano bench with the others and a day went by before anyone took a moment to see who sent it and what it might be.
Matthew Trumbull is a writer and actor who lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children. His flash nonfiction writing has previously appeared in Hippocampus Magazine in July 2025. He has also been published in Short Reads (December 2025) and the inaugural issue of Slips Slips (May 2025). Matthew’s solo play, The Zebra Shirt of Lonely Children, was a recipient of fringe festival awards in New York and Minnesota. He has been a mainstage storyteller at The Moth. Website: matthewtrumbull.com. Instagram: @matthewtrumbull
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Edna Winti
