The Impossible Obituary

By: submission | July 24, 2026

Author: Leigh-Anne Burley

Mary’s living room wall quivered, peeling back like delicate skin. It revealed a mirror image of her own space, but someone had painted the walls light gray instead of the familiar light blue. In a corner, a young man who bore a striking resemblance to her late husband, Harold, in his youth, with tousled sandy hair and green eyes, sat in a light-blue fabric-covered chair, absorbed in the local obituaries laid out before him. In contrast, Mary sat near the stranger in an identical light-gray chair. Tears stung the backs of her eyes as she remembered her husband sitting in his brown leather recliner after breakfast, enjoying the smell, feel, and rustle of the morning paper. His chair was missing from the other living room.
Curious, Mary rose, leaned forward, and read: Mary Cunningham, 180 years old, died today. With a racing heart, she stared at this woman who looked like her, even with a small brown mole above her left eyebrow. How is it possible for this older version to have the same life events?
Stepping back, Mary exclaimed, “This must be a mistake! I’m 79.”
The young man looked up and spoke in an unsettling calm voice, “There’s no mistake.”
“No one lives to be 180!”
He tapped the entry and said, “You will. It’s here in black and white.”
Mary did not know why she was talking to this person, whoever he was, except that it felt so real and natural. With precision, he folded the newspaper like Harold did when finished, and the wall closed with a whispering echo.
Shaking her head and rubbing her eyes, she understood obituaries, the impossibility of future death dates. Rushing out of her home, she grabbed the morning paper from the front porch. She wasn’t in the obituaries. To be sure, Mary scanned the neighborhood for any futuristic changes. Everything looked the same. Though hesitant to enter the house, Mary knew she had to go in, as staying outside in her robe wasn’t an option.
Busy with tasks of paperwork and watering her garden, Mary filed the strange encounter away as a figment of a stressed mind—a response to the unbearable weight of her husband’s sudden heart attack nine months ago, an event that felt like a lifetime away. Perhaps the sleepless nights had blurred the boundaries between reality and imagination. The eerie vision never returned, and that surreal moment faded into the background of daily life.
On the night Mary turned 80, she dreamt she was in her living room, sitting in her chair with Harold by her side, reading the morning paper. Gazing out the window, she marveled at the stunning beauty of towering green skyscrapers bursting with lush vegetation. Busy robots moved through the streets below, carrying out groundskeeping, maintenance, and construction. Cars flew overhead against fluffy white clouds. As predicted, Mary died in her sleep at 180.