Sixfold Fiction Fall 2013

  Chapter Six: Weeping. While funeral rituals provide a socially sanctioned space for public displays of grief, mourners are obligated to weep in a manner that is not melodramatic. The Melodramatic Weeper may feel the need to be in the spotlight of the comforting action. Try not to hold this against the Melodramatic Weeper. After all, the Melodramatic Weeper may not have the chance to weep at another funeral for an extended period of time, and must make the most of the occasion. I put my arm around my mom. She weeps into my shoulder. My black suit, which hasn’t felt crisp in five hours, gets wet.

  “‘For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain,’” the preacher, Dr. John, quotes. I know he’s quoting the Bible because he uses his special Bible-quoting voice, soft and precise. He stands in front of Aunt May’s coffin in his preacher-robe. “When I speak this verse I can’t help but think of May.” Dr. John talks about the Apostle Paul and how he was in prison, chained to a Roman soldier as his guard. I wonder where they were chained. Ankles? Wrists? “Like Paul, May lived the last years of her life a prisoner to a body filled with sickness, yet she never complained.” Dr. John has an earnest face. It looks like he truly believes this.

  Mom wails. I glance at Nate. His mouth twitches. Aunt May was many things, but uncomplaining was not one of them. “Get that fucking blood pressure cuff off me,” were her penultimate words.

  Dr. John lays his hand on his Bible. “May, like Paul, seemed to rejoice in her affliction.”

  This time Nate snorts. He turns it into a cough and covers his mouth with his hand. He squints. Mom shakes her head back and forth into my shoulder, sobbing in little heh heh puffs. Chapter Six, subsection one: weeping and laughter exist on the same psychological continuum.

  Dr. John talks about how the death of a Christian is a wonderful thing. “The problem is, we don’t believe that,” he says. Dr. John leans forward on his pulpit. “We think of death as some hideous monster come to cut off all our joys.”

  Austin sits up straight. He stops singing under his breath. Mom’s weeping dials down a notch until she’s just resting on my shoulder, breathing through her mouth.

  “We live in a cruel world, and so when death comes to take us to the Lord,” Loo-ard “where we shall have perfect health, wouldn’t you say that death is a friend?”

  Austin’s mouth moves again, but this time it’s because he’s chewing on his lip. He grabs my arm, then climbs onto my lap. I can’t move.

  Dr. John goes on, telling us how wonderful death is, and how God will give us all his beloved sleep one day. I wonder how I’m supposed to get any beloved sleep tonight when all I can think about is putting Aunt May’s body under six feet of sandy earth tomorrow morning. The Aunt May in my head turns to me and winks. “You know what the opposite of death is, right?” she asks. “Death with his hooded black cape and sensual bony fingers?”

  “Life?” I ask her back.

  “Hah!” She pokes me in the ribs. “Sex.”

  I wonder if she’s right. I wonder if being naked will crack my Grief Bubble, or if an orgasm will. I think of Royce.