Drabble: The Phillies Fan by Mark Tulin

When you’re obsessed in the next life.

The Phillies Fan, by Mark Tulin

 
Near the end of his life, I cut my father’s onion bagel into tiny pieces. His gums had shrunk so badly that he couldn’t wear his dentures anymore. I fed him slowly between sips of warm coffee. He could not hold the newspaper or talk very well, often gasping for air after each word. His eyes were too blurry to read the small print, and so I read the sports pages loud enough for him to hear. I made sure not to tell him how awful the Phillies were. I wanted him to have good thoughts for his next destination.