Like Dreams or Drainpipes: The Funeral Jo Castle
of life’s occasional pitfalls, deep as they are, and the search for where lost things go The procession started at two o’clock. The morning was silent as taxidermy. The night before this one had been spent staring from the window in a womb of tangled covers, staring at the moon hanging dolefully in the sky. She had turned half of her face away from me as if I was going to demand an explanation out of her that she couldn’t quite give. I found I missed her when the dawn arrived and the earth buzzed with noises and smells and light again, almost as much as I missed my parents. Mother hadn’t been a shock. It wasn’t long after I was born, as she’d opted for having me over not having cancer. She hadn’t waited. Father, however, had. The breakfast table was just a lonely furnishing today. I sat there as convention dictated; my stomach remained silent. I stared across at the voids filling the other chairs wishing for anything. Nanna was in another room making phone calls. Books will have you believe that it always rains or snows on funerals- like somehow the clouds above are sad too, and empty out their harvests onto our planet below in an act of self-flagellating altruism. This didn’t happen. It had always seemed like Father brought the sun up on his own, since I was known to sleep for hours on end without a rousing- and without him there, who would open those curtains? Who would pull that mighty ball of gold from its refuge in the hills so that breakfast could be had and teeth could be brushed and clothes could be worn? It had turned out that the sun was totally selfsufficient and had brought its best today. By the time we got to the church where the events of the day would unfold it was at the top of its form.
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