Our Funeral for a Friend

Our Funeral for a Friend

He stood looking out the window of the funeral home not really looking for anything yet maybe expecting something. It was a dreary and cold day, the kind that made everything take on a gray hue. He turned and looked around the room filled with people on chairs in neat little rows, everyone dressed in black. Some were lost in their own conversation or crying on one another's shoulder. He looks at the casket and walked slowly towards it as eyes followed him. He peers over the wall of the coffin only to see the woman lain out in a dark blue dress and her hair was done to perfection. The face was beautiful even though it was unmoving. Her lips were pursed even though not smiling. Her eyelids were a soft brown, yet unopened. The pillow was of satin white, the same for the lining inside the casket.

As he looks around the room of the old funeral home, at the heavy oak walls with pictures of sunsets and mountains scattered about. Everyone's eyes were on him, waiting for something to be said. He stands there remembering the faces as he scans to each one. Then turning back to the woman, her casket laid open before all to see. He reaches for the half lid opened up so everyone could look upon the death face of this woman. Pulling hard on the lid, as it slammed shut with a loud thud. Everyone gasped and some started towards him as he turns and hurriedly walks to the front door with several people in tow. Once outside in the gray light, he breaks into a run as fast as he can, leaving the crowd behind him.

A mile later he finds himself at the front door to the house he knows well to be his father's. The door opens with a slam. There on the table next to the couch lay the objects he is looking for. Keys, the keys to the car he had parked outside. He tears off the dark and drab clothes as he pushes his legs into the faded jeans. Pulling on the worn button down shirt as he heads out to the car. There sitting quietly waiting for him, a 67' Dodge Charger, gleaming dark blue with the predominant hood scoop giving it a menacing look to anyone in front, with the wide tires in the back saying to anyone behind that it meant business in the stance portrayed. He opens the door without a creak or a groan as he gets inside pulling the door closed with a muffled thud. A turn of the key and the engine rumbles to life with the exhaust making a familiar throaty sound that emanates power. Looking out on the lake before him only for a moment, then he pushes in the clutch, drives the shifter into first gear as the engine revs and a drop of the clutch, the rear tires start spinning as he cranks the steering wheel hard to the left as the rear of the car swings around. Billowing smoke rolls out of the rear wheel wells as dark black lines form from a wide arc into two straight lines as the engine whines up. The front launches forward as the tires gain their traction. The mile that separates the funeral home and his father's now gone with a flash as people had gathered outside not knowing what was going to happen, perhaps expecting something.

The brake lights flash on as the front wheels turn sharply left into the raised entrance to the parking lot as the front of the car launches into the air only to land again from the weight. Sparks fly from underneath as the chassis lands on the crest of the concrete entrance. Suddenly the car stops with a rumble and a screeching of rubber. As the engine revs and the tires again smoke with the steering wheels pulled hard left again, the back end of the car spins around leaving two semi-circle black streaks only to stop when the front is facing the other direction. The doors that hold the headlights hidden during the day suddenly rotate over revealing the headlights on and brightly shining. One rev, two revs, three revs and the car launches as the rear tires start rotating causing smoke to run out and waft upwards. The engine whines with a fevered pitch as a haze forms around the car while it continues to rev even higher and the tires spin faster.

Then suddenly silence, a silence like no one there had ever felt. The engine is silent and the tires are silent. The people gathered at the edge of the parking lot are silent perhaps waiting for what might be next as the heavy blue smoke and the smell of burning rubber gently fades.

Eyes widen, mouths open and faces skewer into astonishment as the smoke clears. A man steps out onto the tarred surface of the parking lot and starts walking into the smoke. Peering through half closed eyes with his arm shading from the day only to see...

Nothing, the car is gone. In its place are the two marks left by the tires spinning causing the blanket of smoke to hide its disappearance. No tracks to the direction of its escape. Just gone.

Someone from inside the funeral home comes running out with a shocked expression across her face. She looks right, then left to the crowd and sees the people breaking into a run to them. She screams...

"She's gone, nothings left, she's just gone!!!" she shouts to everyone as they turn in her direction.

One man says, "Yeah we know it vanished, it was here and now it is gone!"

"No, not the car... she is gone. Empty casket, nothing inside... Gone!" her look turns frantic as she turns back and runs inside.

The crowd slowly files back into the parlor and see that the woman was right. They look at each other questioning what was going on. Suddenly a large man sitting in the back of the room smiling, he lets out a laugh and the crowd turns to leer at him. The man points his pudgy fingers at the crowd and laughs louder with tears rolling down his reddened cheeks as his laughs get louder, the crowd continues to look at him as a woman steps closer. Suddenly she realizes why he is laughing as a smile crosses her face. She turns to the rest, opens her mouth to speak with a glee in her voice.

"I know what Mort is laughing at, and I know what Carl did. I know why Patty is gone and the way everything happened! You see, Mort laughs because he was the Joker, and Carl is gone because he was never meant to be here! Patty is gone from us, taken away before she was meant to, or maybe it was meant this way! Don'tcha see? We grew together, and we lived, laughed, hurt and cried together. We weren't supposed to! Can't you see it? We are supposed to celebrate the things we had, TOGETHER! Celebrate life, not death. We all lived for a time together, and we had that time. Now it is gone, fleeting and resolute. Remember the lives we shared. Mort laughs because he remembers his pranks and the fun he brought to us. Carl came here and entered our lives, but he never was meant to be here, he couldn't, his life was to wild, to chaotic in a way that only he could control! We could never help him before and we cannot now. How can you cage a wild eagle when you know it is wild and meant to be free? John, you were the first to step into the smoke, the first to say goodbye to Carl when he left also, adventurous and unafraid of things you didn't understand! Kim, you were the one that was the glue in our eyes and you see them all disappear one by one as you looked around, don't you understand? Can't you see it? This was not meant to happen this way, everything is fixed and you can't change it! Not you, nor you, or even you!" She points to people standing around the room then to the next. "No one can change what has happened, all we know is that it happened and there is nothing we can do about it so we have to accept it and go on. We need to celebrate and party." The entire room was silent and eerie as the smiles came across their faces.

Good-bye Patty, you brought us joy in life, pain in death, but we will go on, as we all must. Your memory will fade over time... in most eyes... but in my eyes all you have to do is look with ethereal eyes and see, what once was there will always be there. To quote a song that I heard before and now like because it's meaning is fitting... "May You Stay Forever Young."

"A life lived happy and poor, is so much better then to live a life lived sad and rich, for man is richer with which no monetary value ever could..."

Carl W Sudbrink
2010