If I told you that Mubashir Ali Zaidi's flash fiction "Smile" combined premises of both The Sixth Sense and City of Angels you'd probably either long for or shudder to remember the late '90s. You'd also have a good sense of what "Smile" is about. It's flash fiction, however, so I don't feel like I've given away much that you'd have ascertained yourself within a couple of lines: a man has the ability to see the Angel of Death.
That set-up, however, raises a more unique premise: families call the man in to see if sick loved ones are fatally ill or not. I recently read another short story that asked the question: if you could know the date of your death, would you want to know? I don't know why but the answer to that question is more difficult for me than if I'd want to know the death date of a loved one— especially if said loved one is sick.
So yes, a very short story that raises some provocative questions and considering that euthanasia is once more dominating Canadian headlines, not without pertinence.
1 comment:
I found that delightfully creepy, but I agree the story you posted a few weeks ago (about knowing the date of your own death) had much more impact.
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