ON THE EVE OF THE FUNERAL

Writing prompt: On the Eve of the Funeral

She was at college when she got the call. It was before cell phones so early in the morning she was called to the office and told to call home. Her brother had died during the night. Though he had been in a coma for 536 days, it still came as a shock.

Come home!!! With barely any time to pack, she had to secure a ride, get to Western Union to obtain money for a plane ticket, and get to the airport.

Her dad picked her up at the airport. Never had he looked so ashen. Not after the accident, not during the agonizing year and a half her brother had lain, silent, staring, unresponsive. Just a baby--13 at the time of the accident, 15 at the time of death. Nothing much was said on the way home for what could anyone say?

Walking into her house, she became enveloped in the palpable sadness, the pall that pervaded every inch of the home. The home that had once held memories of happy Christmases, family dinners, playful times. All erased now by a stultifying melancholy that was like a slap in the face.

On the eve of the funeral, the family solemnly made its way to the horrifying ordeal known as the wake. The funeral home: Gloomy, macabre, lurid. He was to be cremated so there was no coffin. The dead little boy lay on a table, in a red vinyl bag zipped up to his mid chest. No one really came because it was so very sad, such a protracted ordeal. Plus the family wanted some measure of privacy.

She stared at her little brother for a long time. It looked like a caricature of him. A little boy. Blond hair, eyes sewn shut. Complexion waxy, but it had been waxy after 536 days laying still. This was all that what was left. A body on a slab, zipped in a vinyl shroud. No one was crying for so many tears had been shed that it was irrelevant by that time. She wanted to see some indication that he was at peace, but there was none that she could see. Just a cold body--a corpse--how she hated that word.

The ghoulish mortician urged the boy's parents to bid their farewells. How does a parent do this? Hastily, they did so. They had said goodbye long ago, really. The other brother said his goodbyes. The sister stood by, staring, ruminating.... No one had noticed, but she had brought her tattered, worn stuffed dog, hers since she was a baby, something she slept with even then, at the age of 20. When no one was looking, she tucked the stuffed dog into the bag beside her brother, hoping it would be cremated with him. Might give him some measure of peace. Might send some of her with him. It obviously made no sense, but she had to do something.

As they left to go, all walking woodenly toward the door, she turned back one last time. They were zipping up the bag, zipping it over his face. It was the first time pure emotion flooded through her. She wanted to run and slap the wax-hearted mortician--stop him. He'd suffocate, don't zip the bag. Of course, that was ridiculous. Her mother turned to look at her. She didn't want her mother to witness what she had seen so, now shaken to the core, she walked out the door of the funeral home.

Tears were welling up in her eyes but she held them in--she had become a master of that. Of course, this image presented itself in her dreams for years to come.