August 12, Mel Bay, Oregon
Black.
Black slacks.
Black suit jacket.
Shiny black buttons on a faded black button up shirt perfectly pressed.
Black pin stripes and black tie with the first hint of light from diagonal white stripes. The tie covering his heart. Ira Conrad imagined his heart was pumping dark blood through his veins. Blood that was perhaps a crimson so deep it was a shade of black as well. Ira imagined the blackness seeping through limbs and erupting from his chest—the pain was so real that it was hard to believe it was an emotion and not a physical or literal ailment.
Ira suppressed a hiccup and gripped his shirt with a fist.
Ira stared down at the closed casket. More black; a shimmering darkness that reflected Ira’s own image on its smooth glossy surface. He naturally laid his other hand against the box. He could barely hear others in mourning passing behind him, sniffling, or weeping. Some sighed heavily as they passed. Ira could see their faint reflection in the casket’s mirror like surface; holding white handkerchiefs. Ira wondered why they weren’t black.
He wanted to cry too. He wanted to let it all drain out like a pressure cooker that’s lost its seal. It would relieve a certain amount of agony, but he couldn’t do it. It was almost like he wanted to cling to the agony. To make sure he paid for the loss—paid for it a thousand times over.
Ira was sitting in a pew with his mom, Stephanie Conrad. She wiped tears from her eyes with a white handkerchief as well. Everything seemed to echo in the Cathedral. There seemed to be so many shadows, and the only light was filtered by stained glass windows, depicting Saints with curled fingers and bowed heads. Ira noted the blaze of light surrounding each of their heads like a halo. Their long red garments bathed the light and turned it a transparent red, like Christmas lights. Much of the Cathedral reminded Ira of Christmas. He supposed that made sense.
The Cathedral smelled old. It smelled of dust and wood. It smelled of death.
One by one speakers mounted the pulpit. Ira recognized them but was in no hurry to recall their relation to Cole. They became a rumbling in the back of his mind; a mind tossed to and fro. Guilt to agony and back again.
The memories crashed into his cranium. Ira leaned forward and held his head in his hands. No. You don’t have to gruel over this again!!! But the memories only came with more fury. The phone in his hand.
“…Are you busy tonight?”
The lie.
The stupid girl. The distraction. The stupor of thought.
Ira held his face. The first tears wetted his palms. They smelled of salt. They didn’t solve anything. Ira sat wondering if he would ever be whole again. He didn’t want to be—he wanted to pay for this. Pay for it a thousand times over.
Ira gripped the casket once more; this time accompanied by several others whom Ira recognized but could not put a name to. The bulky box was heavy even with 6 men lifting. Ira fought back more tears as they hauled the box from the hearse to a perfectly rectangular hole cut out of the grassy hillside.
There was a gusting wind whipping through the cemetery. It seemed to ripple off headstones and crash into the mourning procession. Women’s hats were thrown off, and men’s ties flapped like kite tales. There was sun too; a bright glowing sort of summer sun. It was a happy sun.
What inconvenient weather. It should have rained.
Ira turned his back as the first shovels of dirt and pebbles were tossed back into the hole. He shut his eyes and tried to disappear, but the sound of mud and rock on the hollow casket beat like a drum in his mind—thump.
He wanted to cover his ears. Panic seemed to well up in his throat—thump.
Each crumbling thump seemed to shake Ira to the core. Tears were streaming again. His feet were moving. The tree, he stumbled behind it. Coming to his knees he gripped a handful of grass and set his head against the tree’s trunk.
Guilt! Loss! Guilt! Loss! Thump thump thump. Wind.
Thump. The wind seemed to convey the sound of his lost friend’s last existence as it was suppressed by dirt and mire—thump.
Or was he imagining the sound—thump.
You will not be forgotten. THUMP!
I will pay for this a thousand times over. THUMP!
