Please note that the cover image leads to a sign up link for the story
Link for Amazon for audio version: buy here
What they say:
When an 83-year-old woman dies, she is not transported straight to heaven. She is taken on an unexpected detour back to her life shortly before she died. Only this time, she is seeing the world from a different point of view. This is the first time she has ever experienced a detour being the best part of a journey.
Checkout Girl was published as part of the short story compilation Moments in aid of the tsunami. It was also part of a short story collection published in Germany.
Aimee Alexander is the pen name of best-selling Irish author Denise Deegan.
The Review:
“Christmas Eve 1989. Eighty-three years of life end in one split second. I feel no pain, jiust shick. My last thoughts are not profound: He broke the lights! I had the green man. My life does not flash in front of me. Someone else’s does. Someone I don’t even know. A checkout girl at the supermarket I was in, a little earlier.”
What a gem of a story. It’s so short that all I can tell you is that the lady in question oversees the checkout girl aka ‘Debbie’s’ life, showing us the hardship of a person who, in our protagonist’s own life, has just done a good deed and has suffered for it. There’s loveliness, wistfullness, magic, some life lessons and a nice little kick at the end. You’ll remember I gushed over The Prince and The Pea short story here and All We Have Lost here (both same author, Denise Deegan writes as Aimee Alexander!) and adored them both and this is right up there with them. It is beautiful, wonderous, entertaining and, well, just excellent really. And it’s free so really, off you go. Go get and honestly enjoy it, I hope you fall in love with it as much as I did!
