The Funeral
It was just about the darkest bit of twilight, when only the faintest red afterglow left any trace of the sun on the horizon just a few minutes earlier. But inside the corner diner where our young man sat with his luggage, there was no time for remembering. Waitresses bussed tables, cooks yelled orders, and old men shuffled newspapers in their seats. Even the lights of highway cars and street lamps filled in where the memories of sunset had left off.
From his seat in the back, he had long since become part of the décor. The long, still lines of his face were indistinguishable from the patterned wallpaper behind him, and his black overcoat and suit pants mimicked the black leather booth he leaned back in. No one knew how long he had been sitting there. Someone said they just saw him come in. Another said he’d gotten there earlier that day. But if he had been there all week, or if he had been sitting there since the dawn of time, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone.
He appeared not to notice the waitresses shuffling past him constantly on their way to and from the kitchen—if one of them were to drop glass or plate beside him, or if a car were to come smashing through the window, he wouldn’t have moved an inch. Rather, he stared down into his coffee mug and sat quietly. Occasionally he stirred it with a spoon, as if this simple gesture would prompt some kind of answer out of it.
At some point a waitress had passed by and slipped two menus and a few cups of creamer on the table. The table was set for two; a matched set of plates, utensils, and mugs mirrored each other on opposite sides of the booth. No one sat across from him.
After who knows how long, he took one of the creamers, slowly peeled the plastic top off, and dropped it into his coffee. He wished he was the type of person who enjoyed black coffee, but he never could get past the taste. The cream sank to the bottom of the mug and slowly rolled back up the sides, spreading out over the surface like a mushroom cloud.
He dropped in another, and stirring it gently with his spoon, the spirals dissipated and the coffee turned a light brown. He turned his head and scanned the menu over briefly: Two Eggs and Toast—$2.99; Three Eggs and Toast—$3.99; Four Eggs and…
The words on the page dissipated, and his eyes slowly glossed over. Instead, they began to play back the day before him. His memory was the one and only place he could really count on. There he could try things as many times as he’d like, or refashion entire conversations and encounters as he saw fit. It was his playground, and over it he claimed sole ownership—no one could interfere with his sculpting process.
And so he watched himself stand in the crowd from afar—hidden among the tangled mass of tombstones, trees, and black trench coats, there was no chance anyone could’ve recognized him; they hadn’t even expected him to show up. The procession went by for the second time today, only this time the clouds seemed less gray, the air felt warmer, peoples’ faces, postures seemed less weary.
His memories were simply old trinkets on a shelf; they could be polished, adjusted, rearranged. It was possible to spend entire afternoons walking among them, lazily strolling down his favorite isles and making his usual rounds. Sometimes he would come back to some of the older ones too, give them a quick once-over, dust them off, and put them back on the shelf where they belonged.
Not before making any necessary adjustments, however. It was better to put them away in a form more palatable to him. In the case of the funeral, when he came back to it, he knew he would want everyone to be less upset, easier to understand.
At one point he saw his sister look back at him through the crowd. They had locked eyes for only a second, but it stuck out oddly in his mind. How she caught his gaze through all those people, he didn’t know. But he knew it was a sort of hopeful look, an expression of sympathy that wanted nothing more than to say I forgive you. He quickly thought better of it. It must just have been his paranoia. He knew he saw things when he was nervous, and she couldn’t have seen him from all the way up front anyway. Besides, that was why he didn’t go up and talk to her in the first place. She hadn’t forgiven him yet. No—otherwise she would’ve said something, done something to keep him there.
He tinkered with the scene in his head, slowly but surely erasing her pitiful, wide eyes from his memory, and methodically forgetting her sad expression from his heart piece by piece. Yes, he was sure now that she hadn’t seen him; she hadn’t even turned back at all. There she stood in the front of the crowd, hunched over the casket the entire ceremony like he remembered she did.
It was a shame that she hadn’t looked back, he thought to himself, it really was. If she had just acknowledged him in the slightest way he would’ve taken the initiative and made his way through the crowd to stand by her side. He concentrated a little harder, played with the thought between his fingers, and became increasingly offended that she hadn’t even taken the time to look for him in the crowd. She must’ve known that he was there; how could he have not come back for his own mother’s funeral?
But she never came to wish him goodbye all the way back then, why would he have any reason to expect any different this time? He still remembered sitting at the tarmac, waiting for her to show up. He could swear it was like she hadn’t even tried to stop him from leaving. It was that silence that pushed him away more than anything, he thought.
The sound of an impatiently tapping pencil brought him back to his place in the booth. There a waitress stood, waiting on his order. “What’ll you have today sir?”
He took a minute to remind himself where he was, then gave the menu a quick glance again, trying to feign some interest in eating. The images from earlier today faded into his periphery. “Sorry, I wasn’t actually planning on ordering anything.”
Her pencil tapping sped up. “Well you’ve been here quite a while now, if you’re not going to get anything you’re going to have to leave.” He shifted around from side to side in his seat, trying to find a response. The more he shifted, the faster the pencil tapped.
“Can’t I just sit here a little bit longer? I’m waiting for a flight.” He managed to get out after a while longer.
She closed her notepad and put the pencil back in her pocket. “No. We’re going to have to ask you to leave now, sir.” She nodded towards someone behind the counter.
He decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. “Leaving, I’m leaving,” he quietly grumbled as he gathered his things. She walked back towards the kitchen, and he took another long look around the room.
He let all the small details sink in. Tracing every line to its end, and every light to its source, the whole room acquired a sort of odd translucency. The outlines of things and people began to shimmer, as if they really existed somewhere else right now, and were only passing through this current moment on their way to another place and time.
It was all transposable. Everything in that room could simply be picked up and placed somewhere else: the diner booth sat in front of the casket at the funeral, his childhood bedroom was furnished with the same patterned wallpaper, the waitress was busy tapping her pencil at his ninth birthday party.
Smiling, he slowly finished gathering his luggage and walked out through the front door. He was frustrated that he couldn’t think of what to say to that waitress, but took comfort in the fact that he would eventually get the last word. As he stepped out into the soft, yellow glow of the streetlamps, he let the night air rush past his face—the two eggs with toast and black coffee in his stomach kept him warm.