Prometheus [1] - The Funeral

The sky was not as somber as befitting a day such as that day.  A light shade of blue hung enticingly above.  The warm sun speckled the cool grass beneath the few oaks while a breeze wafted the smell of lilacs across the field.  Birds sang, children ran, and adults looked on as plastic roses danced in rows of headstones.  All the while, macabre thoughts clung to my heavy black ensemble as I drifted like a hapless leaf in this brook of strangers, I, anonymous, unheeded, to his open grave.

The tall lanky man—are all preachers tall and lanky?—spoke in a monotone about the greatness of God and the smallness of Man.  He preached of the ritual of life and death.  He tossed dirt—ashes and dust—before ordering the shiny black box into the open wound that smelled of clean dirt and fresh-cut grass.  She wailed.  Or, perhaps, I did.  No one noticed.  That afternoon lasted the rest of my life, which was over in seconds as I pondered the meaning of light and colors and earth and the worms that would build their tunnels around him as life went on.  The world refused to stop turning.

The limousine driver dropped me off at my apartment and I slept for the rest of the day and into the night, and even then until I lost track of the hours and the days, waking long enough to make a pot of coffee just to smell the warm rich smell of him and crawl back into bed, touching myself in all the right places, craving the sleep that would follow my orgasms, which were enhanced by a metallic sorrow.

On the third day, when the ringing phone no longer consented to mask itself into my dreams, I answered it.

“You must be ready in one hour,” the voice said.  “The limousine will be there to pick you up.”

I dumped the cold pot of coffee down the sink and showered.  My black ensemble was wrinkled and smelled of sweat and sex after alternately sleeping and masturbating in it for the last three days.  I pulled on a soft pantsuit over fresh underwear and ran my fingers through my damp hair before stepping out into the same blue sky pinned up by the same bright, living sun that saw him buried on that other day.  The limo was waiting as the voice had said it would.

I ordered my mourning over.  My unused voice tuned up as I monologued at the driver the entire ride.  I unleashed diatribes about the French and their guileless antipathy towards American tourists, the long lines at the women’s Port-O-Potties at every single carnival in the country, and the fact that my housekeeper switches my sink floor mat with my stove floor mat every single time she cleans.  I bitched and ranted and I was grateful to have such an attuned ear that didn’t really give a damn.

The driver stopped at the entrance to the hotel I’d frequented once a week.  The doorman held my door and I proceeded to our usual suite.  Before the elevator finished opening on the top floor, I heard the sobbing coming from inside the room.  I swiped my card and entered tentatively.

I knew I wasn’t the only one who was appointed to the room.  I knew there were others with the same card who swiped their way in each week for their allotted hour, but I’d never entered the room with anyone other than him present.  It was never restricted, but never encouraged, either.

The large oak desk, the desk he often wrote at while waiting for me to arrive or take my leave, was rearranged in the middle of the great room with three black leather executive chairs surrounding it.  A man sat hunched over in one of the chairs and was now weeping less violently than I had heard from outside the room.  He was dressed in a tailored suit and I recognized him as one of the Party.

I strode across the room and knelt by side.  “Aries,” I spoke softly as I placed my hand on his shoulder.  He lifted his tear-stained face to me as grief outlined his features.  “Aries.  Come, let me hold you.”

We stood and I wrapped my arms around him.  His sobbing became more pronounced as unintelligible words muffled against my shoulder.  I shushed and held him like his mother might do.  I hummed words of soothing and rocked him gently, his frame towering well above me as I played the maternal support in his time of need.  Finally, his heaving slowed.