Change Pt. 1

The funerary was packed. In fact. Ser you  , there were three of them in that block, all of which were bursting with people, both living and dead. Groups of four and five chat bellow the sycamores, tiny yellow leaves falling inside plastic cups full of black coffee. Their tones are over excited.

A middle aged man sits inside the stifling mourning room. Dark flocks of women walk around him. He stares blankly at the front page of a folded newspaper, dated three days earlier. Inside the room rest six coffins, with only enough space between them for a thin relative to approach and pay their last respects. The plastic chairs aligned on every wall were crammed with sweaty people wearing black tuxedoes and dresses. Paper fans clap rhythmically.

The man lights a cigarette, allows ash to fall on his blue jeans. Sullen faces around him turn towards the rising smoke, and grimace. The young woman sitting next to him twitches and calls him, ‘sir?’

‘What?’

‘May I have one?’

‘… Sure’.

He lit it for her, flicking a stainless silver zippo. Conversations inside the room died out a little bit.

‘Who died for you?’ asked the woman.

‘My brother’ he answered. ‘You?’

‘My mom’.

The man shrugged and snorted. ‘Shit, I’m sorry’.

‘Yeah, me too. If I’d lost my brother I’d be devastated’.

‘That’s nothin’; a man I work with lost three, boom’ he pointed a fictional gun at his temple, ‘all at once, like they had rehearsed it, or somethin’… How did she, uh…’

‘I don’t want to talk about it’, she replied curtly.

‘Sure…’

‘I’m ok, though. My brother’s torn to pieces’.

‘He younger than you?’

‘Yes, and he was always a mama’s boy.’

As they spoke, six people carried a coffin through the main hallway, led by a man of the cloth who held a can with burning incense. They chanted a tune in an undertone.

‘I don’t live here, you know?’ she continued. ‘I don’t know town very well, and my brother is too young to know either. Hell, he only knows how to get to the mall. Where would you recommend to go to find a well paying job?’

‘Nah, can’t help you with that’ He let his cigarette fall and crushed it with the heel of his boots.

‘Oh, it’s ok.’

‘I wonder why it happened’ he said, staring blankly at the five remaining coffins.

‘I’m just pissed off at the way media dealt with the whole thing…’ she replied, raising her tone. ‘I mean…’ she hit the edge of the newspaper. ‘’Massive Mass Suicide’, god! It’s not even… correct, you know?’

‘You know they took statistics?’ he asked in his turn, lighting another cigarette. ‘Everyone was between thirty and fifty, give or take…’

‘Yeah, and they were all drug consumers…’ she retorted.

‘That’s got nothing to do with it.’

‘I doubt it’

‘Listen, kid, I’m forty five. I’ve used drugs since I was twelve. Cigarettes, coffee, alcohol, cocaine, LSD, pot… you name it. I don’t have a job, I live in my late mother's house, in the same room I was born in… I didn’t do it. Why?’

‘Maybe you are just naturally a happier person’ she ventured.

‘Nah… I doubt it’.

A clerk approached them and asked in a kind tone ‘Would you mind smoking in the garden?’.

‘Sure, man, I’m sorry’ said the man. 

‘Want a cup of coffee?’ he asked the woman.

‘Why not? Let me tell my brother. See you outside'

They parted. The man went through the crowd, holding the cigarette above his head and engaged in conversation with a group of men around his own age somewhere near the front gates.

The woman exited the funerary accompanied by a sullen looking, skinny teenage boy. The three of them walked in silence until they entered an equally packed coffee shop two blocks away.

‘How do you take it?’

‘Brown’.

‘You?’

‘He doesn’t drink coffee, he’s sixteen’.

‘I want a double’ said the brother.

They sat at a table under a TV set. ‘What was he doing?’ asked the boy.

‘Sorry?’

‘Your brother…’

The man measured him. ‘He had a prostitute over’ he said finally, ‘She killed herself, too’.

‘Mom was doing the laundry’ said the woman. ‘She drank the detergents… All of them’.

‘Why did they do it?’ asked the brother with a reddening face.

‘They said in the paper they’d put up a free shrink service’ replied the girl.

‘That’s a sugar pill’ replied the man. ‘Most people will forget, like a bad Christmas. Is people like your brother who’re really fucked. It’ll drill into their heads forever’.

‘Did you hear it?’ asks the woman, blowing on the steamy cup.

‘Yeh…’

She smiled. ‘Why didn’t you do it, then?’

‘No idea…’

‘I just thought… what for? You know? I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know what I was hearing. Why would I go and do as something unknown tells me to? I felt it was uncalled for…’

The man drank his drink to the bottom, the cup still steamed when he set it on the table. ‘I guess they really wanted a change’.

‘It only happened in Japan and the Americas…’ interjected the brother. ‘I always thought if anyone were to off themselves it would be the Russians or the Swedish or something… No one did it in Europe or Africa or Australia… Just Japan… and the Americas…’

‘The all overdosed in RPG games’ retorted his sister.

‘Very funny’

‘What’s an RPG game?’

‘You see?... Mom didn’t know either’. They boy fixed his eyes on the TV set above his head, contorting his neck, and abandoned the conversation.

Other mourners had entered the coffee shop, all murmuring around the same subject.

‘Do you have anything your brother didn’t?’ asked the woman, finishing the last of her drink.

‘Unassisted boners’ he retorted, and signaled a waitress for another cup. ‘He had been drinking pills for… what? Five years now. I blame that…’

‘Mom didn’t drink boner pills…’ retorted the woman.

‘I have a dog…’ he continued. ‘He didn’t do It either…. My landowner’s cat bit his own stomach open… My dog’s fine, he’s got a crooked leg, walks like an overexcited drunk penguin. I know he heard the call, we both did. When we heard the call he just ignored it’.

‘Like you did?’ asked the brother.

‘Yeh…’

‘The landowner killed himself too?’

‘Only after his wife did it. Spent a whole night sobbing over the blood on the floor, then shot himself with the same gun. They hadn’t picked either of the bodies by morning… Wanna eat something, kid?’ he asked the boy, who shook his head. ‘You look like shit. No one’s gonna cook like your mom did, you better start getting used to garbage on your plate right away…’

‘I can cook like her’

‘Doubt it’ retorted the brother with a snort, his sister sighed. In the meantime, the middle aged man had ordered sandwiches for all of them. The waitress set the three plates at the table with delicate moves. She cleared her throat, then ventured, ‘You all come from the funerary, right?’

‘Yeh…’ they answered as one.

‘Isn’t it awful? All my fish jumped out of their tank, ‘cept one…’ her heavy lidded eyes were wide open as she shared her story. ‘Sorry, I guess that’s nothin’ compared to…’

‘It’s the same shit’ retorted the man.

‘Well, uh… Sorry for your loss’ she said, and disappeared among the crowd.

‘Listen’ said the girl, ‘I was thinking, we don’t really want to stay at mom’s house… And we thought, maybe, you’d prefer to not be alone, too, so… You look like a decent man. Think we could stay at…’

‘No room’ he barged in. ‘Sorry… I live in a pigsty no one should see, just me and my dog, no visitors allowed. And I’m not a decent man, I’m a drug abuser with bad breath and I got a rash’.

‘What’s your dog’s name?’

‘Dog’

They ate in silence. When they were finished, the man and the woman split the bill. They smoked a cigarette at the parking lot of the coffee shop.

‘How about you stay at our place?’ she insisted.

‘Then who’d take care of Dog?’

‘He doesn’t want to, Gin’ said the brother.

‘Whatever… It’s ok’ she replied.  

(D.)