[ WP ] When a person dies , they sing their favorite song until they 're physically unable to .

Please be gentle! 
 
 With morbid fascination, John watched as his mother passed away. She was n't particularly likeable. In fact, she had always been a pain in the ass, more often than not. This was the woman who had forbade him from participating in band because it was too expensive, choir or drama because it was too feminine, and turned the radio off at every single turn. If his mother had had it her way, John knew that he would have never heard a single note of song in his life. 
 
 As she breathed out her last, one of the doctors came in to offer their condolences, before the singing started. There was always singing, it was said. Never had there been someone who did n't start singing the one song that meant the most, the one that would carry on in this world after their death. John had always wondered what would happen in the case of his mother, of someone who hated music with more passion than she could possibly love another human being. 
 
 The moment the first notes left his mother's lips, John was transfixed. He had anticipated bad singing, or some cheap country song that focused on someone going to jail after getting drunk. He was n't expecting... 
 
 He had never heard the song before, and knew that he was n't like to hear it again. In a solemn, painful way, it pulled at his heartstrings. John wondered how the witch had anything inside of her, at this hour. 
 
 He looked over at the doctor, a man almost twenty years his senior, and saw that he held a scalpel. `` I know this must be difficult for you,'' he said over the lament, `` I have to ask, though, do you want her to be presentable for a burial, or no?'' 
 
 John shook his head, a tear leaking out of his eye. `` Smash her face in, for all I care,'' he spat. 
 
 The doctor stepped past John, and brushed his mother's corpse's hair back, almost tenderly, before raising the scalpel. He made a quick incision, deftly snapping something inside her throat that made the singing stop. He then leaned down and kissed the corpse on the forehead. 
 
 `` What the --'' John stammered, before backing up. `` Are you nuts?!'' 
 
 The doctor sighed, before answering. `` She never told you about me, did she? I'm Rick Branson, and I wrote that song with her, before she got pregnant with her son. I'm assuming she never did have another child.'' 
 
 `` *With* her?'' John asked, startled. 
 
 `` We... we went to high school together. Sang together. Did lots of things we were n't supposed to do together. I'm... I'm a little surprised she did n't mention me. All's for the best, I suppose. Let me clean her up, and I'll give you my number. You're how old now, thirty? Thirty-two?'' 
 
 John let out a heavy sigh. Of course, he thought. Of course the woman who had given birth to him had neglected to mention to him that she knew who his father was, and that they still lived in the same town. Of course. 
 
 He could cry.
