Brazilian Brickie returns from the Dead

A 69-year-old Brazilian man surprised the virtual ’life’ out of the entire family by turning up, albeit a bit late, for his own funeral, according to a bizarre report on page 85 of this week’s Resurrection Gazette.

Family and relatives of Ademir Jorge Lazarus, a semi-retired bricklayer, had positively identified him as the victim of a fatal traffic collision in the southern Parana state a couple of days previously when his 4 x 4 pick up truck collided with a pantechnicon loaded to the gills with illegal cockle-picking Chinese immigrants and two hundred pallet loads of H1N1Sneezy Pig fllu-approved plastic coffins being shipped north to Florida.

Police told the El Gobbo Gazette that relatives had trouble identifying the corpse of Senor Lazarus because it was badly disfigured due the multi-wheeled truck running over his vehicle and then it catching fire and exploding in classic Hollywood fashion due the 50 litres of gasoline and two boxes of primed dynamite he habitually carried in the vehicle.

However it later emerged that Senor Lazarus had spent the previous night drinking at a downtown jig-jig bar swigging jugs of the local plonk – a nipa palm liquor called "pingo" - with his shit-for-brains alkie compadres and had let his ‘amigo’ Gregorio del Cretino borrow the pick-up to drive down to the local bordello and recruit some likely ‘Puta la Snatcha’ to compliment and enhance the evening’s entertainment.

Apparently while the inebriated del Cretino had met the on-coming pantechnicon in a head-on collision the gang kept on drinking until they passed out – for the best part of the next day – hence Lazarus didn’t get word of his funeral until it was already happening on Monday morning, according to his niece Rosa del Buceta.

Ms. del Buceta explained that some family members - including herself and the man's mother - had doubts that it was her uncle’s body, but her Aunt Gluttonia and the El Cono cousins had peremptorily identified the corpse as they wanted to get the funeral over and done with so the man’s will could be read and his worldly goods and chattels divided up between them in true Brazilian grasping fashion.

"So we went ahead with the funeral," Rosa told a reporter from El Gobbo. “We were all stood around the grave as the coffin was lowered down and the next thing Uncle Ademir appears - the walking dead coming towards us – so Auntie Gluttonia shits her knickers and does a runner – along with the El Cono’s – then we discover he’s not a ghost or a zombie – and is still alive and okay and he tells us ‘Hussssh’ so we can claim the insurance money and buy a new pick up truck.”

Apart from a singular annoying aside for Senor Lazarus - the fact his cheapskate Mother was in the process of burying him in a recycled materials cardboard coffin – all lived happily ever after.

And the closing statement from the local priest performing the funeral service : “Holy shit and Madre de Dios - I’ve heard of born-again Christians but this takes the proverbial biscuit!”