Kevin

He was old enough to be her father. Not that it stopped him from sleeping with her. Then again, considering he was the disembodied spirit of a hard-nosed private eye possessing a thermos with the Marlboro image stamped on it, crazier things could have happened.
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#####She took a long drag from her newly lit Newport as she lay half covered by the sheets.
#####“Oh sorry, you don’t mind that I smoke Newports, do you?” She asked. He explained to her for what seemed like the thousandth time that though he was a thermos with a Marlboro image on it, he in no way reflected the views or cares of the company. He only had one purpose before his spirit could move on to the other side. To find the person who killed his partner…who also happened to be his wife…who also was a really good cook.
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#####“Damn I loved that lasagna.” He muttered to himself.
######“What did you say?” asked the woman whose name her forgot.
######“Nothing! Stop smothering me!” He shouted. He rolled over to window and stared outside longingly, or he would’ve if he had eyes. He slowly loaded his Magnum and holstered it in his shoulder strap. He smoothed out his mustache. It was the only thing left over from his former life. He remembered the moment like it was yesterday…because it was yesterday, he was taking this all quite well. He lay bleeding out on the street. His partner-wife dead next to him, the lasagna she had prepared for dinner laid splattered everywhere. He shifted on his side trying to get one last bite of the delicious Italian dish before leaving this world. That’s when the shaman showed up.
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#######“You there!” The shaman bellowed, “Would you sell your soul to me to seek revenge on the one who did this too you!?”
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#####“No” He answered, “Just cram some lasagna in my mouth and let me die.”
######“Revenge you shall have!” screamed the shaman.
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#######“No, No! For the love of Christ just the lasagna!” but it was too late. The shaman had transformed his soul into the nearest most affordable object, a thermos with a Marlboro image on it.
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######“Well this blows” he said staring out the window. The woman was getting dressed. She jotted her number down on a napkin.
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#######“Call me sometime” she offered. Then she disappeared out the door. He checked out of the hotel they had stayed in shortly thereafter. He got some sideways glances from other patrons.
########“Oh what’s the matter? Never seen a disembodied ghost inhabit a thermos to seek revenge on someone?” All the patrons reassured him that they had actually seen this before, some just the other day, but that they there were staring because of the condom he still had on the sprocket of the thermos. He grumbled and walked out of the hotel. Not many know what happened to the thermos, only that now again on certain nights when people make lasagna, you can hear the faint sound of a Magnum going off, claiming the life of the one who killed his partner-wife. Either that or it’s a car backfiring.