Authors note- funeral day with sven
The cemetery was a large one, and where the street entered it, well kept. The grass was green and neatly trimmed. He glanced over at Mark in the passenger seat. The pudgy man gazed out the window, and with a glance Sven saw the many bundles of flowers arranged at each white head stone as they creeped past in his van. It always struck him that it was odd to have so many head stones gathered in one place. Neatly lined up just so and all. It was though the people that they marked the position of were precious herd animals or some thing, brought there for the safest keeping.
For eternity.
Sven shook his head at the notion.
What a waste this was. A waste of time, and especially, the waste of a life. He knew he was not here for himself. Not even for Janoos. What did the man care what people did now, any way. The man was dead.
No, he was here for Mark's sake. The suffering fat man was his neighbor, after all. And, well, Sven supposed, his friend as well.
He scanned the grassy area, and found a sort of tent like structure that wasn't quite a tent. He followed the rest of the paved area to a round shaped sort of clearing. He pulled up next to a brown sedan that he did not reconise, and dully pulled the lever to the park position.
"Here we are." Sven breathed the needless announcement.
"You sure this is the place?" Clare said behind him.
"nu uh."
"Who else would be having a funeral here?" Mark said with a soft yet morose sort of tone. Sven shucked in his bottom lip, and stared at the fascinating steering wheel. The let his eyes drift as far up as his thumbs.
Sven heard an exasperated sigh as Clare opened her door first of them all. She somehow managed to wrestle a sleeping Jake free of the car seat contraption before either man moved a hand toward theie respective door handles. Sven wondered at her sure movements, and marveled she could move so given that the back doors to his truck were so thin and tiny. He recalled that they were certainly difficult to open from the inside, especially when the two front door were shut.
Sven swallowed and with a glance to the not tent, opened his door and stepped down to stand on the pavement.
He just dreaded the next few hours would be filled with crappy rememberances and eulogies and such that always accompanied any funeral service, and it looked as if this one would be as dull and sad as Sven knew it would be.
Together they walked up to the not tent. A man dressed in a dark suit and tie looked their way and nodded with his lips pulled tight in a not quite smile as a sort of greeting. Sven let his gaze slide off the man as he took in the others gathered under the thinly stretched flaps.
There was an old lady who's white hair was done up an stuffed beneath a wide brimmed hat with a large white bow gracing the band. She was dressed in a matching dress that looked to be made of a rather fine sort of cloth that reached a little below her knees, and upon her feet were a pair of heeled pumps.
Beside her was a young boy with a baseball cap facing the wrong way. Sven watched his mouth move as the boy chewed bubble gum. Thankfully, the boy had enough sense of respect and did not blow any bubbles with the stuff. He was dressed in dark slacks and a white dress shirt with a rather stiff looking collar. No tie bound the lapels, and Sven supposed that the old woman had negotiated and bribed the boy with much to get the child to dress up as much as he did for the service.
There was a fellow dressed in what Sven supposed was supposed to be a black bolero jacket, and he raised a brow at the massively soft gut that spilled out of the tiny vest's scant confines. Such a garment was meant to be worn only by the most fit of men, and this pride filled fellow clearly thought he was one. Or perhaps still one, given he looked to be reaching his fourth decade of life. He found himself thankful that the long sleeved dress shirt covered what was sure to be a fish belly white of a belly. No one would ever want to see something like that at any time, and somehow it was especially unappealing to see at some one's funeral.
He wonder what the dearly departed would think of that, if the dearly departed could, that is. Sven did not believe for a moment Janoos could.
There was a large woman who stood a hair taller than the boy, and looked roughly twice as wide. What she chose to wear Sven would have said belonged on a tent at any other time. The tan canvas frock had no shape really, and Sven supposed neither did the rather plump woman it covered. Her dark hair was done up in a tight looking bun, and as her eyes and wide frog like lips looked pinched up as if the woman were bearing with some sort of great pain. Sven chose to think that who ever had done the woman's hair that day had done it up a rather too tight.
He thought perhaps it was done on purpose.
Behind them stood a large fellow that looked to be a might more familiar than the rest of the bunch gathered before the grave. Sven narrowed his eyes at the leather jacket with the spikes gracing the shoulders, but the man did wear a white dress shirt with a tie beneath that heavy thing. The long black hair gathered at the neck this time, and dark glasses masked the man's eyes, but Sven knew this had to be the man who had been at Mark's porch a few days ago.
They all stood in the shade, and had their heads bowed as though they were studying a certain place with great intensity. Sven too flicked his eyes that way, wondering just what it was that they were looking at. The man in the dark suit droned onwards in his polite tone of introduction, and Sven couldn't care less really about what the man said.
He eyed an overly green piece of fake grass that buckled an bowed in such a way that it was obviously covered something. It was likely draped over some freshly turned dirt.
Sven swallowed and when the Mark moved with Claire, so did he. He couldn't tear his eye off that spot, which he supposed was like, so much like, how the others had to feel. This was it. This is where Janoos Blankenship had left his body and was going into the ground like some weird sort of parody of a seed being planted.
Sven never really got the idea of why people did such weird things as actually bury the dead corpse.
Dead was dead.
What was really the point?
Sven tucked his finger beneath the uncomfortably tight and stiff feeling collar about his own neck and gave the thing a good tug. What ever the starch Clare had used up on getting the all wrinkles out that morning made it ever more itchy than he would have liked, but he supposed it was worth it to her to see him all dressed up like this, all to send off a friend and a neighbor that they both would miss. He had to admit the white long sleeved dress shirt he wore beneath his own black, make that dark brown, coat, as the coat he had on certainly wasn't quite as black at the black leather jacket across the way, stood out as the whitest white amongst the group.
He wasn't sure if he should be prideful over such a thing in such a place, but Claire really did go all out for this sort of thing. He was not feeling pride for himself. He was feeling pride for her. He told himself as he straightened his spine and did his best to at least appear that he was paying some attention to what was being said in such a dull droning tone.
After a few breaths of actually trying to listen, he wondered if it was possible to fall asleep on his feet.
After a few more, he told himself that it would be really bad form to actually fall asleep at a funeral.
A space filler..ooooo..a space filler
Author s note—the dinner after the funeral at Sven's place
The ceremony left something of a dull after taste to Sven's mouth. He scraped his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he gazed blearily about the brightly lit up and neatly trimmed grass.
He looked to Mark's down turned face as they mingled amongst the strangers, and he did the only thing that made sense to him at the time. He invited Mark over to have a meal with he and Claire. He knew it was one of the rights that followed every funeral he had ever heard of. Feed the living when the one we all are supposed to be honoring that day is among the dead, he thought. What an irony it was.
Mark asked that Jan's favorite food be fixed then. Claire smiled and immediately demanded to know just what it was.
Mark nodded, and said something Sven couldn't begin to pronounce.
Sven had no idea what ever the weird sounding dish was, and could not imagine how to even begin to find out how to make the thing. He was not much of a cook, after all. He could and often did burn boiling water.
He looked over at Clarie, and was relieved that she seemed to know just what the heck Mark had referred to. She agreed immediately to fix the dish while clutching Jake to her chest. Jake for his part made a bit of a fuss as he wiggled and clearly wished to feel the neatly cut grass tickling his bare feet.
The awakened toddler proved to be as good an excuse as any not to linger very long at the grave site, and Sven was happy to flee from the place as quickly as he could manage.
Only when he reached his house did it dawn on him that he had no idea what the names of any of the guests were. He stood at that grave site all morning, and not a single one had managed to stick into his brain. He pulled into his drive way and turned in his seat. He looked back at Clare.
She busied herself with the many straps of Jake's baby sitting in the car contraption, and did not return his look as she lifted the toddler free of the plastic. He opened his mouth as he took a breath, but paused as he tried to think of the best way to phrase what he wanted to say.
Hey do you know what those people's names are because I did not bother to pay attention yet again. That would likely be followed by a Yes dear. I solemnly swear to take many many copious notes the next time the neighbor drops dead beneighth my hands and has a funeral filled with all sort of relatives that I will very likely not ever see again in my life. Ever. Really I will. Promise and cross my heart and every thing.
He closed his mouth with an audible pop, and decided to take the much manly route. Perhaps he would earn back his man card this way. He decided to say not a thing.
He took care of the welcoming and the seating, while Clare took care of puttering about the kitchen. She handed off Jake and Sven did his best to hold the flailing todder with one hand, while looking sagely on as their guests seemed to grill poor Mark with question after question. He managed to get a name to stick in his brain, that of the leather clad fellow. His name was apparently Mika. Or was it Miska? The man seemed to respond to both.
"Blankenship. He used to joke that his name belonged in a video game." Mark was saying sadly, but the weak grin tugging at the fat man's lips showed all of his fondness for who ever he was speaking of. Sven narrowed his eyes with a question on the tip of his tounge.
"Yeah. That sounds just like him" Miska mika or who ever it was in the leather replied with his own wry sort of grin. The sunglasses remained in place even though they sat inside together on the couch, and the lighting in his tiny living room had to be dim in constrast to the brightness of the sun outside.
Sven shook his head and began passing Jake about to the others in the room. The fat lady wearing the tent cooed happily at his son, and his son giggled shrilliy in an almost scream that had Clare poking her head around the corner in a heartbeat.
Sven did his best not to smile at her worried filled face, but failed miserably. She did grin back once she saw that Jake was right as rain.
Claire declared the dish done and one by one they each wondered to the stove to dish it on the paper plates she had fished out of the cupboards. Sven poked at the beige looking goop with the ladle at first, and looked at the others for some sort of guidance as to how to proceed. Eventually he shrugged and glopped the mess on to the paper plate, and tried not to wonder what it was made of. He found that if he pretended that it tasted like chicken, most of the time he actually chewed it, it did.
While stuffing their faces at the feast, and the lights flickered just so, Sven couldn't help it. The thought just fluttered through his brain, with the funeral and Janoos's death being on his driveway at his hands and everything, he knew he just had to say it aloud.
"Maybe it's Janoos." Sven said, and lifted a brow in a way that he meant to be over dramatic. In the silence that filled the room, he knew that it was just awful that he had the stupid audaiciy to bring up even the idea of a ghost. Sven pulled the corners of his lips into a forced kind of smile as he brought the glass of terrible tasting wine to his mouth. Janoos's death beneath his hands wasn't quite enough to send him down to the crazy pit, he supposed, so it may be the whole funeral thing was really getting to him.
A space filler..ooooo..a space filler
Authors note—the night after the dinner party at mark's place
To say that Mark missed Janoos greatly would be an understatement. He didn't believe in ghosts, but when ever the light by his bed flickered in that too empty place, he could not help but wonder at the possibility.
He schogged his way to his empty apartment that night with deadened eyes. He barely noticed the many strewn flowers cluttering the tiny square piece of scraggly dirt patch that passed as his lawn. He knew where they came from. Likely all the peole who could not make the funeral, mostly made up of all the street type people the Jan had helped throughout the years. By morning, he estimated it would be a small mountain. May be.
He kicked the porch step free of some flowery stragglers, somewhat aiming for the erstwhile lawn in the process, and pushed open his door. It was weird to think of the place as his now.
His project pile sat in the shadows, where he stashed it in the corner of his tiny living room. He never actually thought of his work space as a living room, but he knew that was what the brochure the property management called it. The device buried under the many colors of wire had started out as a radio, and he added a few circuits he had dredged up from a few broken down computers. It was supposed to vacuum the room at one point of his tinkering, but the motor for that purpose had not worked as well as he had hoped.
He had blown many batteries with that project. There had been at least three memorable fires that scorched the tile by the kitchen stove when he had tried to get the thing to turn about on its own.
He let out a breath as he flicked on the light he had set up by the door. He dove to catch the thing befor it could tip all the way over and crash to the ground. As he rose, he darted his eyes all over. The place seemed ever more empty now that the funeral was done. He had to accept that Janoos was forever gone.
He looked over at the blinking cursor of the monitor, and lowered his brows.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Sent via a stray supercharged nano particle of unobtainium....
