SPRING 2025, SHORT STORY, 980 WORDS
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Another cadaver on the table. Another lot of spirits for a funeral.
Dona Zelma had been fermenting under the sun for more than a decade. Retired from her job and children, she spent most of her time sitting on her porch, watching life drain from her pores into the gutters of the tiny town lodged between river and sea, the one that hid behind the ocean-green tanks of its proud distillery.
The alcoholic air hid the smell of sun-dried meat until a couple days later. The boys from the mill found Dona Zelma in her chair, still rocking. They thought it was odd when she didn’t wave as they crossed the dirt road by her farm, a routine of every morning. She was plopped on the Distiller’s table in the same bleached clothes, with a box of anything they found in her house as a side.
The Distiller, weary, asked what they knew of her. Family? Friends? Deeds? They knew she liked her porch and to wave. With failing patience, she told them to scour the town for anyone that could consider Dona Zelma a loved one.
Alone with the body, there was much to be done by the Distiller before it could be drunk at the funeral, and yet not enough she could arrange herself. The fermenting wasn’t supervised as it was practice, when the spirits-to-be got themselves anchored to hospital beds. There were no rites, no parting words or tears or emotions. Just a dried old lady, much akin to a gecko in the winter.
The box of belongings wasn’t great cachaça material, either. A worn dog collar, small and far too old for it to still have a neck attached. Colorless photos of beachgoers, in none of which was Dona Zelma present. A cookbook where half the recipes were printed from some website.
There was, however, the recipe for an onion pie, noted in the smallest cursive. A memory in yellowed paper. The Distiller cut it from the book and threw it into the fluid in the large copper tub. Soon the yeast made some of it come loose: a party and a full house, a busy kitchen, and a comforting dish all bobbed in the foamy surface.
In the late afternoon, as the Distiller bathed the remains of Dona Zelma, the Daughter Who Stayed came in to see the body. Knowledge of the old woman’s death travelled by word of mouth until it reached her, the night baker from the Pão Nobre bakery at the end of the street.
At first, she didn’t believe it was her Zelma. The mother was there on the porch, a postcard of the town, and a looming shadow over her children, most which had slipped out into the world. The Baker thought one day she would be able to walk around her mother’s shade and find her smiling in the light. Now that hope was also going into the tub.
The Daughter kneeled by the vessel. The Distiller offered to hold her hair while she let all out, but the Daughter would rather avoid the touch of the woman from the tanks. The corpse brewer had a light in her eyes while watching the emission process, something like a forbidden hunger.
The words of the Daughter flew. A leakage turned into a flood, of kissed bruises and slaps, exaltation and humiliation, cooperation and competition, tempers and comfort. With a last choked spit, she gave enough material for a funeral. A metallic adjective, “unapologetic,” floated for a moment before sinking to the bottom.
The Distiller asked if the Daughter wanted to watch the process. The answer was an obligatory yes.
Dona Zelma’s corpse was lowered into the tub as if being put to sleep. The lid was fixed over it, and the heat raised. The vapors released were then pushed through cool pipes, and the resulting liquid repeated the process, again and again, thirteen times until the necessary purity was reached.
By then, it was already morning.
The eulogies of the priest and the mayor had no words against the reputation of Dona Zelma. In truth, they praised her sense of community and dedication to her family, while brandishing cups of the cachaça the deceased was made into. A strong and rich beverage with notes of love and affection combined with noble self-sacrifice. The drink was approved by the entire town, whether they knew and liked Dona Zelma or not.
The Daughter couldn’t drink it. Her eyes were fixed on the urn in the middle of the chapel, the one she helped the Distiller fill. The main vessel had the remains from the tub, which were mostly the heavy things we all drag along: guts, metabolism, and effluvia. The thirteen smaller urns came from each step, something of Dona Zelma only the Daughter could touch.
Into these subsequent distillations came loose the leaded assumptions let run bitter over the years, and the salts of feelings left unsaid. One could hear the smashing and the shouting, smell the tears and forced excuses.
The Distiller approached the Daughter, but not to comfort. She told the Daughter that she should taste the drink, for all its flavors were true, as much as they felt like lies. The Daughter spilled her dose on the ground, left it for the saints or the devil to give their approval.
She then asked the Distiller a simple question: was that look in her eyes envy? Did the Distiller knew she wouldn’t taste as good in her own funeral?
The Distiller answered with a pained laugh that she spent too long hidden under the shadow of her tanks to taste like anything. Nothing latches her to the earth, good or bad. When her time arrives, she won’t be distilled, she will sublimate; and along with her will disappear the tired tradition of drinking up the dead.
Le Werner (she/they) is a writer, translator and editor from Curitiba, Brazil. Their short stories in Portuguese have appeared in anthologies such as ACID+NEON and Contos de Tarot. She was a first reader and editor of A Taverna magazine and is now a first reader of Cascártica magazine. In English, she has been published by the Skull & Laurel. They are also a member of the Fantástico Guia, an organization that supports Brazilian speculative fiction writers who are writing and submitting their work in English.