The Eulogy

The body lay quietly in the coffin. His face was pale, calm. A hint of a smile graced his lips but nothing more. A bit of powder on his face, some lipstick to brighten up the dreary grey of them. He would rather die than have make up on his face. But oh, no pun intended.

 

An elderly couple crept up to the coffin and peered down at the deceased. The man coughed, pretending to hide his tears. The woman, closed her eyes and slid sad blobs of saltwater down her leathered cheeks. She hugged him and then burst into tears. The muffled sobs echoed throughout the forest. No one else said a thing. They all sat in their silence, respecting the dead.

 

The woman bent down over the coffin and kissed the dead man's forehead. "You were my gift from heaven," she said and then rushed a handkerchief to her eyes and nose. The grieving couple made their way down from the pedestal and sat down on one of the scattered benches. The husband's arm around the grieving wife, as she sobbed into his old, worn out shoulders.

 

A man walked up to the coffin. "Hey, Tiny," he muttered. "You're such an idiot. You're supposed to win our bet, remember? You were supposed to get married first." He bent down and kissed the cold, pale cheek. "I miss you, man. You took so long to come home and now that you're here, we can't even have a decent plate of kam pua mee together." And he made his way to his seat.

 

Another man walked up to pay his respects. "Hey, man. We should've finished off the Something Stupid melody when we had a chance. And hey, here's your songbook." He patted the man on the chest and laid down a well used Hitz Parade book."

 

Then a woman walked up to the coffin and she looked down at the man lying there. She kept her silence. She looked at the face she thought she knew so well. She looked beyond the closed eyelids and saw the friend she once knew. "I'm sorry," she whispers. And then she turned to leave and walked right out of the forest. She never looked back.

 

There was a woman, that no one really noticed. She stood behind the trees and waited for the weather to turn dark and grey and for everyone to leave. The coffin was closed. But still, it sat there, waiting for the undertaker to lay the body to rest.

 

She came up and opened the coffin. He still lay there, cold, pale, calm. Unmoving. So un-alive.

 

She tweaked his white bowtie and smiled at him. He loved that tailsuit. Oh, how he loved it. How he used to dance with her in it, spinning her around, floating on the dance floor.

 

"Hey, Snuggle." She ran her fingers through his hair. His bushy bushy hair. Hair that apparently could only be tamed by a good short haircut. Her fingers ran over the hole where the bullet had exited through his skull. She lingered there for a moment, her eyes glad-wrapped in tears.

 

"What happened to us, darling?" she whispered, imagining for a moment, he would wake up and hand in hand, they would walk out of there to the glorious future they were supposed to have together. But he lay there, hard, unmoving. Fingers cold, at his side. She tried to shut out the mental image of walking into his apartment, smelling the cordite and the thick, coppery sweet scent of blood and guts and gore. She did not see. But she knew. He had done it.

 

They both knew what was going to happen. In a way, she blamed herself for it. She could have stopped him. She could have took it all away. But he wanted it. He wanted it to end this way. Gloriously. Dramatically. At a point in time and in life that he knew what he was doing and before the old eyes failed and the heart withered away. Before dementia and paranoia and multiple heart, lung or kidney conditions took over everything that was important to him. Before the tumour and the chemo and the radiation drove him insane.

 

She admired him for that. She truly did. He had the guts to finally finish what he started.

 

"I love you, sugarpuff," he whispered to her the night before he died. They had slept in each others' arms, warm and content, satiated and satisfied. She had pleaded then, for him to reconsider, to change his mind.

 

"Boo, I want to die happy." He had said this in that slightly serious tone that always scared her a little bit. But she knew that no matter what she said, she could not make him think twice about this.

 

And the next morning, it was as though nothing had happened. He was up, smiling and shaving and he hugged her from behind as she brushed her teeth in the bathroom and kissed the top of her head.

"I'll make you breakfast," he said, cheerily. And then, rummaging through the cupboard, "Damn it! Hon, can you get some eggs?"

 

She did not think that it would happen so quickly. As she turned to leave, he pulled her close for a kiss. Just like the first kiss they shared. Uncertain, hesitant, soft, gentle, hard, yielding, caring, sweet. It was love.

 

"I love you, gorgeous," he murmured, with a hint of a smile.

 

"I love you too, snuggle," she replied.

 

And that was the last time she ever heard his voice.

 

The next moment consisted of her dialing 111, reporting a suicide. Then everything happened. The police, family, people around her. It was as though she stood frozen to the spot as things moved around her. And she just stood there. Doing nothing. In shock. In tears. In pain.

 

But there they were. Just the two of them. Him at peace, her in turmoil.

 

"I can't live without you, sweetie." She closed her eyes and tears smeared her mascara. "I love you too much."

 

She climbed into the coffin with him, snuggling side by side and she wrapped his arms around her waist, just like he used to do.

 

As she placed her lips on his, she remembered their first kiss. And the subsequent many kisses after.

 

She tucked their favourite blue rose into his lapel and held him tight for the final time as she closed the coffin lid.

 

And then raised the Beretta to her left temple.

 

***

The only thing that stirred were the birds disturbed by the muffled shot.

 

The undertaker did notice the coffin was a lot heavier but who knows, maybe he was getting on in years.