The Lager Queen of Minnesota

by J. Ryan Stradal

Her grief was a forest with no trails, and she couldn’t guess how long her heart would walk through it, as her body walked other places.

For half a century, she had seen or spoken with this man almost every day, so his life didn’t end when he died; it found its way into cereal aisles and intersections and post office lines and conversations she didn’t intend.

It occurred to Diana just then that death doesn’t happen all at once. The public death is just the beginning, and the rest takes as long as it has to, in private bits and pieces, without any warning, schedule, or validation. A pen they once held, now out of ink. A bag of their favorite chips, past its expiration date. A crack in a personalized coffee mug. She wondered who else in her life had, put away somewhere, a dry pen, expired chips, a broken mug, an aging bottle of beer. She wondered who had the courage to let them go, without ceremony or reflection.