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Jonathan

Twenty-Two years ago

I’ve never liked funerals

Especially when it’s my mother’s

The pretentiousness and the fake sympathy, or even the real tears, are all useless Why cry for someone ill never co is selfishness

People don’t cry for the dead People cry because of the uncontrollable rush of their own emotions

The grey clouds condense in the distance, for one thick layer over the other until the air is nearly black Looks like the sky , too

But ould it? Did it even know the wo in the casket?

The people surrounding it, throwing her favourite tulip flowers didn’t know her either They pretend they did, because she spent her entire life running between charities and spending money we didn’t have

Not that Gregory, my father, would’ve told her to do otherwise He cared for her wellbeing enough to s the knife with its blood

I take a sip of my small stash of whiskey that I stole from my brother, James, and let the burn soothe my throat He’ll probably kill me, but I don’t need him drunk on this day, of all days At least I’m in full control of my actions and myself

Father is about to fall apart and if James does, too…well, fuck if I can carry them both

I sit at the back of the cerave that appears a few decades old Layers of dust cover the stone and the writing has been erased by the hands of tis to it like a second skin One of the forgotten dead

“There you are”

I don’t lifta black suit and his light hair that he usually leaves haphazard is styled and neat

At least he dressed up for the occasion It took a funeral for that

For a moment, he remains silent, his shoulder not far frorave with its unpleasant appearance and the birds’ waste

It’s rave will be like this one twenty years from now?”

“Not if you have a say in it”

“True that”