After a while, all burials adopted the same pallor as the deceased’s face. Everyone crowded around this boxy hole, and the box suspended above it, while the minister/priest/deacon eulogized the recent deceased. Then, lowering the casket, and some sort of symbolic act, casting roses into the pit, or a handful of dirt. Something to involve the players, besides their token roles as dour choir, chanting the uneven dirge to send whomever it was off to whatever afterlife they believed in. Then, like the closing ceremonies at an awards ceremony, the people would shuffle away, based on proximity, emotional and literal, to the dearly departed. Family, and their memories, lingered about the body, yet also drifted away like smoke. Eventually.
Today was no different. Barry needed a smoke and a piss, but the rules said no. No leaning over onto the shovel, still fresh from his morning clean. Sure, it was just a shovel, but he felt some connection to it, his helper. At the very least, it didn’t give a second thought about these dour proceedings. Whatever, Let the worms feed, bring on the next client.
People tended to make the weather fit their specific day, regardless of the truth that the weather cared not one whit about them. Snowy day, rainy day, matched their mood. Sunny day, breezy day, X would have wanted it this way. It was just weather, and another natural process. Today, drizzle spotted their funereal finery, darkening their clothes, wetting their handkerchiefs. A grey day, a fine day to dig a hole and bury a man. Or a woman. Who was this?
He at least could reference the chart. A deep wrinkled piece of paper in his back pocket listed which plots at what points he was to work on today. Right now, 63-101, and he had ninety minutes until 48-293. As long as the bodies were six feet deep and couldn’t see the skies, Sal didn’t give a damn how he did it. Just had to be respectful and keep a respectful look on his face, show up in his coveralls, and not start until everyone had left.
Oh, this was the big one. Rush the burial and he’d catch hell for it. There was some leeway, depending on how many grieving family members would congregate about the fresh-made grave, as if their love could bring her back. No, really, one elderly woman looked at him and told him that if he would allow her a few more minutes, she thought that he might still return. “Sure, Ma’am.” He even patted her shoulder, leaving behind a dusty handprint. Poor biddy. If she hadn’t died in the interim, she might still believe that. Hell, he, or one of the other day shift, probably buried her. Ironic that her husband looked better than she did; he was dead.
In twos and threes and fives and even an eight, they paced across the bright grass, so green due to the constant influx of nutritious foods and preservatives, entered their wet cars with the bright orange stickers in the windshields, drove off to who knew where. Before you came to
And so it was today that one last family member waited under the canopy, daubing her eyes, sobbing every few seconds. Barry stood a respectable distance from the canopy, giving her time to dry out, so she could leave and get wet. He counted to one-eighty in his head, but no change. Stepped beneath the green canopy, upon the green felt carpet, tapped her on the shoulder. “Miss, I’m sorry, but I have to start soon.” She shivered, hands covering her mouth, turned back to look at him. Her emerald green eyes stared back at him. The woman started to say something, then yelled behind her hands, and jumped into the grave. She clawed and ripped at the casket, crushing the pile of carnations beneath her body. Loud, wordless screams emanated from beneath Barry, as if he’d walked into a horror movie. Maybe all funerals weren’t the same.
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