Recapitulation: In preparation for a grave robbery tomorrow, Barry and Jenna visit the funeral home today to scope out the place. They’ve also been touched and horrified at the young progeria victim. The funeral has concluded, and they’ve traveled en masse to the burial site.
***
A frosty coating of air swirled in Barry’s mouth, flash-freezing his taste buds. He kept huffing it out, watching the vapor crystallize before rising towards heaven and dissipating. Is that what happened to the soul at death? A puff, barely visible for a few seconds, then nothing? Did the soul waft away, or did it have a more concrete idea of where the winds would guide it? Were body and soul intertwined so tight death could not separate the two? He hoped not, that made his job a lot more depressing.
Four little boys and girls bore Jimmy’s casket, flanked in front and behind by stronger adults supporting the majority of the weight. The children had to raise their arms to reach the integrated handles. Toy soldiers all, playing along with this farcical game they’d been drafted for. Still, they marched, they set their round faces in as best a semblance of anger, because that was all they could do to keep from crying and dropping their arms to their sides. Their shorter legs swung twice as fast to keep up with the taller men, thus pacing them at a normal walk. They arrived at the pit, set the casket down on burlap straps stretched taut above it.
A priest, the same one as at the funeral, stood vigiliant at the head of the casket, waiting for the last few vehicles to arrive and disgorge their passengers. Barry couldn’t stare at him, unable to face clergy members since he’d bowled one over in most ignominious fashion. He turned to Jenna, starting to wipe away the crocodile tears from her masked face.
Jenna lifted the tucked handkerchief from Barry’s suit’s breast pocket. “When should I go?” She whispered into his handkerchief, then blew into it for good measure.
“Let him at least get a few words out, give him a minute or so. Are you up to this?”
“You want proof? You’ll get proof.” The time for words passed. Now they were riding a wild white-water river, frothing and straining, belching them towards still waters. To get there, they couldn’t turn away now, couldn’t abandon their ship. This was it, they had to carry it through this their message scriibbled and thrown into a bottle.
When attendees filled the limited seating and most of those that would arrive had gathered around the casket, the priest began thus: “Young Jimmy was taken from us too young. But we are not here to mourn his death, but to celebrate his young life. To recall how youthful and childlike he was, without losing the basic human dignity that lifted him up and made him special. I would ask all of you to never forget that what made him special is within all of you, basic human dignity. If you want to remember and honor Jimmy, never forget about that basic dignity, always celebrate and encourage it, in yourself and others.”
At this, Jenna rushed around from the back row, then started screaming, a high wordless wail. “Mickey, no, no Mickey, no!” She elbowed aside the good father with her sharp elbows, honed by years of high metabolic rate, lifted the cover as easy as thought. She placed her hands on Jimmy’s face, crying out, “Oh my baby boy, my baby boy, please come back to us, oh, baby, baby, do you hear me?” Her hands kept pressing him, as if searching for an on/off switch the morticians involved post-passing as some cruel joke or prophetic statement. As her thin fingers danced across Jimmy Jenna pretended to remove rings from his fingers and slip cheap replacements that somewhat resembled what she’d taken. She palmed a few of the most common color rings, and continued to slip them from her sleeve to her hand, her sleeve to his hand, his hand to her hand, her hand to her sleeve. She continued unabated the wailing for the dead son never hers.
Barry turned his body sideways, knifing through the crowd, parting them like he parted his thinning hair, forcing them to go towards areas of lesser coverage, thinning out the thick tufts. “No, honey, please. That’s not Mikey.” He emphasized the name, putting a slight lilt to the end as if questioning her. Then, he yanked her away from the casket and closed it. “No, dear, that’s Jimmy, that’s not Mikey.”
“No, Mikey, no.” He led her away from the mass of people, crushing in on the two with their confused, angry stares. Even the children, more acclimated to pretending than anyone else there, stared in amazement at the two strange adults. They slunk away, withering beneath the combined firepower of eighty angered people, as the priest continued leading the flock.
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