It’s been a little while but happy to get back into it!
Pastor preaches paddling into the waves of the Black Sea, as we congregate in the church where just last week his son was baptized. Cries echo all around, a merry-go-round of sound, disoriented while trying to hold in my lunch, my eyes a cloudy sky. Eyelids closed, a sleeping beauty, and I can almost hear the beat of his chest and see the belly rising, but it’s wishful thinking because the cousin of sleep has arrived. An open casket reveals the baggage left behind as we hold our breath. The smell is rotten as we try to make sense of the piles of trash sitting in the suitcase.
Glad to see you back. We all have to take breaks occasionally, and what a subject to come back to! Ha ha. The “waves of the black sea” is a strong image. The “merry-go-round” of sound is an amazing image because it shows time and motion through audible sense. The hidden hope of looking at a made-up corpse is really a neat image because I think most of us can identify with that. Looking at something that looks so uncannily real, but knowing it is not. The rotten smell at the end and the knowing it’s time to move on is a great way to end it. Well done.
Cars zoom past no doubt late to return to pushed back emails and soon starting meetings. Humboldt Ave.’s Wednesday is on schedule as gardeners work on their farmer’s tan in between the occasional café buzzing to life in mid-day warmth. I think the weather didn’t get today’s memo. The elderly serve as reminders as I calculate my statistical misfortune with each one in a hypothetical morbid version of Blackjack Card Counting–+21 years, +5 years, +33 years. Guess the game is rigged, I don’t see any minuses; they’ve already left the table. Mom puts us on scout duty for Halbert…or did she say Hubert, Hunart? On the second pass, we find it across from a dive bar reeking of spilled Tuesday specials that we’ll get the griever’s discount at later—they know the drill. I hold the heavy door, a faux kindness, as my family enters a battleground of flowers and formaldehyde. Thick oak stands over budget carpet squares barring us from entry until a young man in a practiced voice gives us his monologue. A stitched lifeless corpse lies cold under a hand-sewn blanket. My shoulders tense in expectation as I seek out the exits, waiting for the cameras to pop out with my real dad and announce the cruel joke. Only sobs fill the empty minutes. My stomach somersaults when no doors open, no cameras pop in. Under that ornate quilt is my dad after-all.
First half of this is very tell-y, I used this quote in this very thread before but I think its a great reference point “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” However! that being said from
this onwards you really start to show the scene of this funeral. The line “Only sobs fill the empty minutes” is a nice, really shows the hollow feeling that can come with grief.
My naked feet stabbed by the gravels on the burning road as we walked towards the cremation ground, our hearts heavier than the body we carried. The priest started chanting his mantras in a monotonous rhythm, having recited the same thing uncountable times as he we laid the body on the pile of irregular wood. My elder brother carried the torch, and the fire pounced on the pyre with a whoosh, the cackle of fire ringing throughout the ground as it creeped upwards consuming the body, the pervasive smell of burning flesh stirred my empty stomach. All my tears vaporised as the fire took it’s final form, an uncontrollable roar and dance on death, leaving just the taste of salt and ash.
One thing I have realised about writing is that where the word goes or what is describing is less important then its mere presence in a sentence. For example, including the word naked adds a strong colour to the sentence that is not only effective in describing your feet, but also adds a tone of nakedness as a metaphor for your vulnerability and exposed humanity. I love how you introduce the monotonic rhythm that provides a sensory backing track to the disorientation of such an occasion. A very visceral cremation scene on the pyre which brings back memories of my travelling through Varanasi a few years ago. I remember being struck by such a direct approach to death in India, and I think you have captured it very beautifully through your writing - well done!
Hearts heavier than the body we carried.
and the entire last line
That is some really beautiful imagery and shows the beauty conveyed by fires “dancing” and sadness with the salt and ash that death carries.
My only suggestion would be when talking about the pile of wood, maybe be more specific, were they irregular bits of cedar? or was it perhaps just scrap wood gathered from old shop pallets? It’s a tiny thing but I think when words like that can be utilised right it can put a meaning behind the whole event if that makes sense?
As I walk up close enough to the casket to see my father, the dam finally cracks enough to break entirely. My vision blurs with the rushing waves of grief forming into rivers down my cheeks. I embrace the cold, solid yet leathery husk that was once my father, and can see his scorch-marked and tanned desert skin has been given makeup. My nose prickles at his comfortingly familiar Jovan Musk cologne. His is here, and yet he gone.
katie was a girl i’d never met. her head always hung from her shoulders with the weight of a bowling ball. screams from her mother fall on the deaf ears of her cold stiff body. a smirk forms under the veil. she looks like a porcelain doll. streaks of jet black paint for eyelashes like spider legs. a warm cheek on my bare shoulder with pooled tears in the crevice of my collar bone. a small pond of saltwater. waking up in a damp bed that holds the night dripping like a sponge. sticky skin
I had never been to a funeral before. I had never seen dead body. I did not expect the cold marble to renounce me, and I did not expect sharp tears to cut my face. The old mourners walked as lifeless as the celebrated corpse. The musky perfumes they enbalmed themselves in drowned out all oxygen in the room, as to preserve this moment forever. A short older woman with glasses as big as fists shuffled past me, taking my wrist in her decaying hand with a rosary in the other. She whispered hail mary’s without moving her lips, and led me to the open casket in front of us. She watched me as I gulped down the sour air and let my eyes fall upon the corpse. This poor woman, resting with a gentle smile as if the punchline for this big joke finally made sense. Her wrinkles stretched back towards her ears revealing her buried youth. I thought, Lord, have mercy on us all. “Amen” the walking Hail Mary replied, still gazing through me.
Hot tears race like snails down my face but are cooled by the January air by the time they reach my chin. Cold gales ice the back of my freshly cut head and neck inducing a full body shiver. The odd drop of cold rain splats on my head, instantly warmed by my skin. Around me, quiet sobbing and one woman wailing incessantly. Though I cant see who. I can just about make out the smudges of pasty white figures dressed in black. My watered eyes have placed a kaleidoscope filter over my vision.
The dark rain clouds slowly moved on top of us as the man in the black suit opened up his black umbrella with an old book in his right wrinkly hand. He read out of the book standing next to the sleek black casket. The subtle small voices and the subtle sound of tears being shed surrounded us. I could feel the sadness of the group like it was a wall hitting me in the face. Eventually enough was enough and I raised my scratchy voice and said “we mustn’t mourn any longer. Grandma Jude wouldn’t want that. Grandma Jude would want a dance party at her funeral, not some sad cliche depress fest” while simultaneously grabbing a firework mortar and lighting it off, shocking the entire crowd. I grabbed the small aux cord and started blastin the skin off everyones faces. We then furiously danced til the end of time, Amen.