Better Cold

Felana Yasko looked out the window of her Bethany Beach, Delaware home. She was twenty-seven-year-old and the color of cacao beans. A drone hovered over the front step and gently dropped a medium size package. Her brow furrowed. She ventured out on to the doorstep as the drone whizzed out of sight.

She lifted the box with her knees and found it to be manageable. When she commanded her door to open, she called for her husband.

“Jeter! Jeter! Jeter!”

Ninety-year-old Jeter Yasko came up the steps in even strides, showing no loss of youth or pep in his step. He was six foot five and the color of chestnuts.

“What is it dear?”

“Did you expect a delivery?” she asked.

“No. What is it?”

“I thought you knew,” she replied.

He grabbed his eyeglasses. “Let’s have a look. The address to this house is right but there’s no return address…do you smell something?”

Felana wrinkled her nose and sniffed. She then grabbed a cutter and sliced it open.

A rush of aromas pervaded the kitchen. The notes of truffles and caviar emitted from the box.

“It’s a pizza,'' he said, lifting back the flap of the thin, rectangular container.

“And weed!” Felana exclaimed. “What…?” Yasko questioned then discovered the pack of OG Godfather indica marijuana strain. The smell was contained in little packets.

There beneath the food and drugs was a note. Yasko read aloud. Meanwhile, Felana busied herself with the elements related to the box’s contents.

“You have been selected to sample the highest THC strain of marijuana known to man. Enjoy both the cannabis and the pizza. Be well.” No signature or any insignia remained on the small piece of paper.

“We should smoke this now,” Felana said.

“Wait, wait. It says here we don’t have to ‘smoke’ it. Pass me that bag, please,” Yasko said.

Felana followed the command. He took out from the larger box an apparatus that permitted the user to partake in the ingestion of the substances.

“It says here that the machine vaporizes it without a flame.”

“Like a bong without fire?” Felana queried.

“More like a humidifier.”

Felana commanded the house assistant system. “Simon, que up Monumental Films List.”

“Goddamn. I haven’t watched one of those in almost a decade.”

“Special movies for a special evening, darling,” Felana wrapped her arms around her husband and kissed him.

“We should get started.”

“We should.” Felana followed the instructions for the device. She sliced into the packets of the weed and cranked the machine up to the medium level. The couple journeyed over to their expansive living room. The large screen featured a list of flicks that had been almost destroyed if not for film firms willing to preserve and archive them.

“Here’s one from 1921,” Felana mentioned.

“Simon, play,” Yasko said.

They watched the film and consumed the fumes of the top notch marijuana. Then, Yasko started coughing. Hard.

“Babe, you okay?” her brow furrowed again.

“I gotcha,” he laughed.

“Don’t play,” she replied, shoving him.

She consumed some more. He did, too.

More coughing, though, followed this benign spell. Yasko kept coughing and hyperventilating.

“Oh my God!” Felana shouted. “Simon! Call the paramedics!”

Once the professionals reached the house, Yasko was already gone.

Felana wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and held her elbows. She watched the paramedics catch contact from the vapors in the air. They even coughed but none of it was severe.

Yasko had opted to be cremated. A small, atheist memorial service followed Yasko’s death.

Once the gathering had ended, Felana called a boyfriend that Yasko had actually approved of in life.

“It’s over so you can come over,” she said.

Burton Kemp, nineteen-years-old, arrived and kissed her.

“There’s pizza in the fridge and there’s plenty of bud left,” she said. Felana mixed the cremains with the weed.

“Great. I’ll heat up the rest of the pie.”

“No, don’t. It’s better cold.”