The cicadas chirped incessantly from above and around. They lurked in the depths of the thick green foliages that had lost their glint because of the maddeningly parching sun. In Kevinâs hands, Emily in the urn felt heavier than before the funeral.
Maybe it was his mind playing a trick on him, since a body in distress led to a mind in distress. Sparse gray strands of hair were glued to his scalp. The white shirt under his black suit jacket clung to his chest and back. And his boxers under the suit pants stuck to his rear. It was as if every particle making up his body or enveloping it for âprotectionâ were eager to prove that it was there for him. Here for him. Trying to cheer him up by making its presence known, guide him through these difficult times, express its condolencesâwhen the problems that this day presented could simply have been solved (or rather, could have never happened), had Emily been alive.
But she was dead.
So, for the last couple of hours or so, Kevin had been dizzied to the point of weakness by the nonsensical amount of perfume that people chose to wear to an occasion like this when they happened to âbelong to the circleâ to which Emily used to belong before she had committed the unthinkable crime of marrying someone âthe likes of Kevin.â
These were quotes from a few fake-polite distant relatives whoâd been whispering just outside the door, in the brightness, while Kevin had been standing just inside around the corner, in the shadow. Theyâd made it extremely clear that they found it highly distasteful that Kevin had chosen this church, so small, so neglected, for the funeral of their relativeâor rather, a woman who used to be, by birth, their relative, until she abandoned that good fortune for some crazy fluffy intangible useless thing she used to call âlove.â
These relatives had been the triggers that had compelled Kevin to storm out of the stuffy church into the equally stuffy outdoor heat. Them, and all the other guests reeking of perfume.
Thereâd been at least a hundred coming and going. Emilyâs sister and brother had wanted to make sure that they make the most out of this last opportunity to redeem the reputation of their dead sister, thereby themselves: call as many ministers and Fortune 500s and celebrities as possible.
The problem was that about half of them hadnât bothered to check the weather forecast (or to check in with their obviously absent common sense). If they had, they would have realized that applying four, five sprays of perfume on a hot summer day, of all days, when going to a church funeral, of all events, was a bad, bad decision. This, considering that the world was full of other people who didnât check the weather forecast (and had an absentee common sense). Anyone with any logical reasoning ability would have concluded that the church was likely going to be full of people who didnât listen to weather forecasters and didnât even know how to miss their lacking common sense, therefore was going to be full of cheap perfume posing as expensive perfume, therefore one didnât need to add to the disastrous heap of invisible junk that was the stuffy church air on an occasion like this.
But alas, there werenât enough people with logical reasoning abilities in Emilyâs old âcircle.â Unlike what her relatives believed, such abilities had absolutely nothing to do with wealth.
So, what had happened? The church had been full of folks whoâd slapped one layer of perfume over the other. The irony, of course, was that the more you slapped on, the more you experienced olfactory fatigue. Therefore, you thought you didnât smell good enough and applied more of the âgoodâ smell, until the âgoodâ became sickeningly terrible.
Kevin sighed. That barely pushed the jelly-like thick air in front of his nostrils out of the way. At once, he felt like he was suffocating. Strange, how the inability to exhale with vigor mimicked the sensation of being unable to inhale properly. The feeling of helplessness had to be happening in his head. He was anticipating the improper inhale when he was performing the inadequate exhale.
Just like he was anticipating his improper life, going forward, at this inadequate funeral.
Oh yes, his life was going to be improper. He was sure of this, although in front of Emilyâs relatives, he never wouldâve admitted it. They were right. He was a failure, always had been. The only person whoâd seemed to fail to notice that had been Emily. Now, with Emily gone, there was nothing left to protect him from that truth. All he had to look forward to was a lifetime of sleeping alone in the cold bed. A lifetime of eating dinner alone. A lifetime of no hand to hold.
And no funeral could be adequate for saying farewell to Emily. Maybe that was why he couldnât stop thinking about himself, even though he didnât want to. If the funeral had been anywhere close to somehow consoling him, he wouldnât be thinking the following, thereby connecting all his previous thoughts about perfumes to himself:
With Emily, he was good.
Without Emily, heâd become sickeningly terrible.
His thoughts kept spinning. Over and over, the rumination continued. He didnât want to. There had to be a silver liningâat which thought, he felt nauseous.
Silver linings belonged on clouds.
Clouds made him think ofâŚ
âŚone stupid helicopter pilot. He was supposed to be the expert, but clearly wasnât, because he ignored the weather forecast and also his common sense on that fateful cloudy day about two weeks ago. That man was all it had taken to turn Kevin from good to terrible by allowing Emily to embark on that Most Exciting Part of the Tour Package That They Had Booked, Now That They Were Both Retired. If Kevin had boarded the helicopter with her, he would have been dead too. He wouldnât have to experience all this.
This stuffy air.
The stupidity of âexpertsâ who ignored weather forecasts.
The maddening shortage of common sense.
And the problem that was rooted in Kevin himself, therefore was too painful to ruminate about, therefore he tried to keep pushing out of his head but had been failing since his wifeâs death:
His own inaction. His cowardice, which had ironically resulted from his inability to trust his fear.
No kidding. Fear, frequently, was the best manifestation of common sense. Use any subtler feeling, and the human was bound to ignore the danger signal. Fear was unlikely to be ignored.
Yet Kevin had managed to do just that, like the coward he was. Mainly, because that pilot had implied that Kevin was ball-less for fearing what he feared.
Bad weather? the pilot had said. This doesnât even count as bad weather.
So, what had Kevin done? Pretended like he was incapable of fear. Implied that the pilot had totally misunderstood his nonchalant comment (âA bit too cloudy today, isnât it?â) as an expression of an emotion. As if real men ever expressed emotions!
Emilyâs father, when he was still alive, had made no attempts to hide the fact that he highly doubted Kevinâs real-manness. Kevin, the son of a groundskeeper, couldnât ever have enough real-manness for his daughter, by definition. The fact that Kevin had grown up right on his grounds also hadnât helped matters. The dead man had had plenty of proof of Kevinâs weakness along the lines of: at age three, the boy enjoyed crying way too much when he fell from the lawnmower. And to think that that son-of-the-groundskeeper (Emilyâs father used to say this phrase as if it were one word) had lusted after his daughter since they were twelveâŚ
Never mind that. That man had been dead for decades. And for the record, Kevin hadnât lusted after Emily when they were twelve. He had merely, purely, simply adored her, and had never stopped since.
Not even now, in her death.
And before her death, since Kevin was a real man, he didnât want to ruin the experience for her. He made up some excuse about a headache rather than admitting that he was too scared to fly and would prefer that his wife didnât fly either. And Emily, whoâd always been the brave one of the twoâotherwise, she wouldnât have married âthe likes of Kevinââcheerfully hopped on the helicopter. It flew off. She waved from the window, smiling. He waved back, with a slight frown, since he was supposed to have a headache. That was their last moment together.
In hindsight, Kevin admitted his foolishness. Saying that you feared nothing was tantamount to admitting you had no intelligence. Only cowards said that they had no fear. He should have dragged Emily off that helicopter. And when the stupid pilot protested, he should have shoved that idiot out of the way and fled with Emily.
Which, he hadnât done. Emily was dead. He was alive.
Theyâd had to rummage for body parts in the wreckage. Worse, when they did find body parts, theyâd had to separate them.
Does this arm belong to that dead lady? Well, this leg here clearly belongs to the pilotâyou can tell by the amount of hair it has, although, this other whole area is burned off, so maybe itâs not so clear, after allâŚ
Emily in the urn felt heavy. Really, a lot heavier than before the funeral. It made no sense. Maybe she was punishing him this way, in his head, and he deserved it. Despite being reduced to dust contained in a more or less tightly sealed urn, she had somehow absorbed the atmospheric humidity quite actively. Not a surprise. In life, sheâd been ingenious. Sheâd transformed herself from the unofficial princess of this area to That Woman Who Went Crazy and Married That Nobody. So why shouldnât she be creative in death, in the form of remains?
A whiff of cheap perfume reached Kevinâs nostrils, and once again, he was reminded of his location: just outside the church; to be more precise, in its back yard, between the building and the tombstones.
The cicadas hadnât stopped chirping. The sun still blazed. The air was still basically immobile, except when it seemed to magically dance whenever someone wearing perfume was nearby.
Kevin clasped Emily closer and glared at the disturber.
âExcuse me,â he said, without having decided what he wanted to say next.
The person, whoâd passed by Kevin to examine a particularly ancient-looking tombstone, looked up.
Kevin took a step back. That primal warning signal, that shiver of fear, took over him.
Why? If you asked, he wouldnât be able to answer.
This was just a woman. Outlandish in her long silver dress and long silver hair, but just a woman in her twentiesâŚ
Or wasnât she? Could it be that the silver hair was natural?
Kevin frowned. His presbyopia was getting worse by the day. And yet, canât you just tell youth by its distinct litheness and carelessness? Whatever messed-up things you do to your body, the side effects havenât fully manifested themselves yet. And no matter how many superfluous movements you commit, your muscles and bones donât protest.
Waste is the luxury reserved for the young. It doesnât matter if the thing that is young is a human or a civilization. Either the cells that come after or the people who come after are bound to suffer the consequences. But those that are here, now? They know nothing of repercussions.
The woman had to be young. Her silver hair glistened too healthily, even under the exhausting sun. Was this the trend among young people these days? Pretending to be old? Was it becoming cool to be old? Just the way at some point, people tried to convince themselves and others that being poor was cool?
As a man in his sixties, Kevin could confidently say: being old was no sin but it wasnât so cool either. The idea that a young personâyoung as in, âhad Emily and I ever had children, and they had had children, youâd be our grandchildrenâs ageâ youngâshould pretend to be old was so uniquely offensive, he took a step forward in as clearly an indignant way as possible.
And yetâŚ
His instincts hadnât fooled him completely. Despite his aging eyes, he could see: the âyoungâ womanâs serene face was wrapped in wrinkles.
Then he thought: What? âWrapped in wrinklesâ?
âIâm sorry,â he hurriedly said. âI mistook you for someone else. I must goâŚâ
âWait, Kevin,â the young woman said.
He froze. ââŚDo I know you?â
âNot yet, but thatâs not too difficult to fix. Let me introduce myself.â
She approached, holding out a hand, apparently expecting him to shake it. But the closer she came, the clearer the wrinkles becameânot on her face, but really wrapped around her face, as if the latest most-impossible-to-understand haute couture statement was facial wrinkle fabric.
Like the finest silk, the wrap swayed in the windâŚ
âŚno. Impossible. There was no breeze. The wrinkle silk was spontaneously swaying.
Actually, it wasnât wrinkled at all, now that the woman came within handshaking distance. What was rippling over the womanâs face was the air itselfâspecially reserved for her and her only, so that she could stay perspiration-free and fluffy like a freshly-dried pillow on this most humid day.
Despite Kevinâs lack of response to her obvious desire to shake hands, she kept coming closer, way too close, until a handshake was clearly impossibleâ
âshe gently pulled Emily from him.
âHey!â he said.
âJust so we can meet,â the woman said.
To her, evidently, the urn wasnât heavy; she basically held it with half her palm. This proved that Kevin had imagined the urnâs getting heavier.
Which was good. It meant that it was very likely that he was imagining the woman too.
A hallucination because of the heat and the perfumeâthat had to be what she was. There was no such thing as a chunk of rippling air following around a person, casting shadows that looked like wrinkles. Perhaps you could play such a visual trick through the elaborate manipulation of the environment, but surely you couldnât manage to create near-intangible fabric.
Because, that was what he was noticing now: the intangibility of the silver dress the woman wore. When its end touched his shoes and the pants cuffs, it flowed throughâŚ
âŚdrenching them.
Kevin gaped down at his own wet feet when the woman grabbed his hand and shook it.
âI am Silver Lining,â she said.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authorâs imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.
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