- D -

Don't Tell Me a Flower Can't Make a Difference

         By the time they made it to the funeral parlor, it was already dark. The nighttime felt inappropriate, like it was the time when the planet closed all accounts and balanced the sheets before calling it a day. Like someone wasn't dead until the sun set and rose again the next morning and the day was starting anew. A fresh lot of babies to raise, an army of corpses to bury. Everything balances. If there was one thing Tristian had learned in his life, it was that somehow in the end, it all came out even. He wasn't sure how, it just worked out that way.
         And as he pulled into the parking lot for the funeral home, he wondered just what Donald had done to cause the Universe to balance him like that. What wrong had been corrected, if any at all? That was the maddening part of it all, people died and sometimes it just seemed for no reason they were taken away. Except you were always told there was a reason for everything. Nothing is random. The man at the pulpit would tell you that until he was blue in the face. But maybe it was worse that way, what if you knew the reasons and discovered you didn't like them. Or even worse, those reasons were terrible reasons. It was the choice between unrelenting chaos and the uncertainty of every moment, or the knowledge that everyone you knew were dying for meaningless reasons.
         Ignorance? Or a sort of paranoid mania, where all your fears were true and everything was connected?
         Tristian wasn't sure which he preferred.
         God, he hated funerals.
         "I hate these things," Brown unintentionally echoed, his voice muffled and dull. He was sitting curled to the window, his elbow resting on the door and his face nestled in his hand.
         "Most people do," Tristian replied, hating the cliche the moment it was evicted from his lips but hating to let the statement pass by silently. The parking lot was full of dark and silent cars, but he managed to find a space near the back. Pulling the car in, he tried not to think about the dense silence that fell on them after he turned it off. For some reason he expected his world to suddenly go black and white, like some lost noir film. No. Not black. Or white. Just grey. A world covered in fine dust.
         "Just a few months ago," Brown was saying, not seeming to even notice that they were at their destination, "we sent a squad poking around Darnoxia, trying to see if there was anything left behind." His body seemed to expand with his deep intake of breath. "There was a tron there. Six people died before they could pull out." Uncurling himself, he flopped back against the seat, staring distantly at nothing, losing his vision in the statuesque lights shining down on the lot. "It was funerals for over a week straight."
         "I'm sorry," was all Tristian really could say. Honestly he didn't want to sit in the car and make the night even more depressing than it was already. But at the same time, Brown needed someone to listen, and he was the person to do it.
         "Don't be, it's part of the job," Brown said offhandedly, dismissing the offered pity. With a barely stifled sigh that he tried to hide under his motions he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door to exit the car in almost one motion.
         Tristian followed suit a second later. The heat of his car seemed to slough right off of him, giving room for the chill air of the winter night to coat him. He shivered and dug his hands deeper into his pockets. On either side of the car the two of them regarded the squat shape of the funeral home. Lights splashed out from under the awning at odd intervals, giving the place an outerworldly feel. None of this felt real to Tristian. It was near impossible to believe he was paying his last respects to someone who was his own age. That didn't make any sense to him. It just didn't.
         On some silent signal the two of them simply began walking to the home. Tristian noticed again that the parking lot was fairly full with cars. Off some ways, closer to where they were parked, he noticed a few other cars snake into the lot, headlights peeling back the night like searchlights, trolling for a spot. Full house, apparently.
         "I think the part I hate the most," Brown continued without warning, his eyes down to the ground, hands jammed in pockets, ghosted breath leaping out of his mouth to reach him and attack his face, "is that the General likes to make sure if there's any family they get the body, so . . . so he has a group of people move like, in between time, I guess, like a few moments before a plane crash or some kind of accident and switches the deceased with someone else and they bring that person back and . . ." he glanced sharply at Tristian. "You've never heard this before?"
         "It's never really occurred to me," was Tristian's honest answer. "But I guess the time part of your name has to come into play somewhere, right?"
         "Right, right," Brown said. He slowed his pace a little, probably wanting to finish his story before they reached the funeral home. Tristian thought that was smart. This wasn't the night to let their other lives filter into the lives here, like some kind of noxious fumes, a cloud around themselves designed to keep the others at bay.
         "And I don't know how the hell the General works it, because I mean a plane crash, you can't ID the body . . . and the ticket is for the guy who was supposed to be there . . . but he does something . . . and it works."
         "What do you do with the person you have?"
         "He offers them an opportunity to join . . . again, don't ask me how, but I think he researches this stuff beforehand because I've never seen a single person refuse . . ."
         Tristian chew his lip thoughtfully. "Still," he said slowly, "you've got the poor person's family, they think he's dead. That's not really fair."
         Brown smiled at Tristian and shrugged. "I know, that bothered me the first time I thought about it . . . until I realized . . . they're dead anyway, they were going to die in whatever accident we plucked them from." He shrugged again, more an acknowledgement of his inability to resolve the issue than a casual dismissal. "I went back and forth on it for a long time . . . in the end I guess, we really haven't changed anything, your death is still there, you know, waiting. It'll happen eventually. We've just delayed it for a bit." He shook his head, lowering his voice in relation to how close they were getting to the parlor. "No, honestly the worst part for me was that we couldn't save everyone, we're there and all these people are minutes, seconds from dying and we just save one. One."
         "That's why I'm not part of your little paramilitary organization," Tristian told him gently.
         "Yeah we'd be reprimanding the hell out of you all the time. I can see it. But no, I suppose for those people, it's just that time. And there's nothing we can do about it."
         They had reached the steps.
         Tristian had expected to find people having cigarettes out here but that wasn't the case at all. The large wooden doors were completely shut, though he could see the soft reflections from the lights inside through the frosted glass. Two lights on either side of the entrance area splashed cold luminance onto the air, but the spaces underneath the awnings seemed to fade into darkness all too quickly.
         Brown gave another sigh, rubbing his hands together as if cold. "We'd better go in," he said, brushing past Tristian to go up the steps, looking like he was fighting against an invisible barrier with every stride.
         Tristian reached him as he began to open the door. A moist wash of heat fell over them. Inside the lights didn't get that much brighter, though the gauziness was somewhat comforting, he supposed.
         Immediately ahead was a fine polished wooden desk, seeming to glisten in the same soft light that glimmered outside. It was just one item in a menagerie of painstakingly crafted furniture that looked older than most of the people that passed this way, both living and dead.
         An elderly man was standing in front of the desk. With barely a word he solemnly indicated for the two of them to proceed to their right. Tristian could already hear the murmur of distant voices floating down the hall, muffled and hushed, like they were waiting for something. A miracle perhaps? Arise, my newly deceased. Your time has not yet come. Maybe, maybe not.
         The hallway widened into a roughly circular area mostly dominated in the center by a large table. Somber flowers decorated the core of the surface, while mass cards were placed neatly in an overlapping ellipse. There was gaps in seemingly random places, probably where mourners had already taken cards. Brown picked one up, looked at it and made a face before gently tucking it into his jacket pocket. Tristian touched one with his finger but made no move to pick it up. The quotation on it was a passage from the Bible he didn't recognize. He suspected that if he picked it up there'd be barely any weight to it. Like it didn't exist at all.
         Straight ahead was a small door that appeared to lead downstairs, most likely to the restrooms and such. It was to their left that they wanted to go, as the smaller room they were in opened into a much larger room. That was where the hum was coming from. It wasn't as monotonal as it was when Tristian first heard it, then it had been more of an even tone, hardly wavering. Closer he could hear the tiny fluctuations in the noise, the odd laugh or stifled cough that broke the featureless surface of sound, the way it seemed to rise and fall like unlike waves breaking on the shore.
         For some reason he half expected to turn and see only a large empty room, but the hall was fairly crowded, not enough so it looked packed but enough so that it seemed more a shifting parade of dark colored clothing than an actual gathering of people. A few groups were clustered in the wide entryway, talking in low voices. Tristian and Brown got a few strange looks, though most of the people Tristian made eye contact with gave him smiles that ranged from friendly to completely neutral.
         Out of the corner of his eye he could see Brown staring at him. Tristian turned slightly to face him to see Brown giving him a questioning motion presumably about going in. Tristian gave him a shrug that he hoped fell somewhere between sure and let's get this over with. He really didn't want to be here, not for the family, not for his friends, not even for himself. He hated this lingering sense of closure, like every person that left the room was one less person remembering that Donald ever existed. Closure. That's what these wakes were for, right? But he didn't want to close the book, to say that's it and declare it over. A life reduced to nothing to halted and scattered memories, increasingly fragmented, already growing hazier by the day.
         Tristian stared into the murmuring crowd, less a crowd than a dozen separate groups happening to occupy the same room for a dozen separate reasons, and reminded himself that nothing ever ended. That's what he had learned. When the end came, it would come all at once. But not before. Until then, it was never over.
         Beyond the entryway rows of chairs were set up along the left side, which was where most of the people were. The room was very spacious and shaped not unlike a stumpy letter L. Tristian could see other sets of chairs in the far right corner, as well as some large couches set along the walls at random intervals. A line of people stretched from the approximate center of the room to curl gradually into the far left corner. Letting his eye track the line to its terminus, he spied the casket and a small group of people that he presumed was the family.
         Hands in his pockets, Brown was staring around the room like a man washed ashore in a foreign country. "God," he said in a low voice, "I thought I had seen all the people I lost touch with at the party." His eyes seemed to bounce from one person to the next, lingering just long enough to catalog their features and compare them with his memories.
         Tristian, meanwhile, was just looking for someone he knew.
         "Hey, you guys made it," a voice said behind them as he felt someone lightly touch his arm.
         Tristian twisted his body to see Jina standing there. She gave him a slight, warm smile and squeezed his arm ever so slightly, enough that he felt the pressure but not so much that the contact lingered. Her face looked a little flushed, with a bit of darkness around the eyes and he wondered how long ago she had been crying. Maybe she hadn't. Maybe it was just the spectre of tears to come that he was seeing. The muted and somber colors of her attire clashed with her pallor and somehow made her look even smaller than usual. It wasn't a fact Tristian was about to bring up, however.
         "Where did you come from?" he asked.
         "Oh, I was back in the corner," she told him, "talking with some people. I saw you two walk in." A hint of the day's earlier impishness flashed across her face. "Why did I manage to sneak up on you?"
         "Let's not go too-"
         Brown chose that moment to spin around and near instant recognition lit up his face. Greeting each other like the old friends they were, he and Jina embraced quickly but tightly and when they had disengaged, Jina let her hand stay on his arm for a second longer before saying, "I didn't know if you were going to make it or not."
         Shrugging flippantly, Brown quipped, "When you're in charge, you make your own hours. That's what rank is for." Still, the statement was relayed in a quiet voice and even Jina didn't seem to know what he had meant right away. It was so easy to forget. Even when it had been thrown right in your face.
         "Still, the only reason I made it was due to your speedy messenger here," Brown commented, indicating Tristian by nudging him with his arm. "So don't forget to thank him." Tristian merely smiled politely and ducked his head in acknowledgment.
         Jina looked back and forth between the two of them like she was trying to identify which play they were rehearsing for. "Whatever, I'm still glad you, both of you, made it."
         "How are they?" Brown asked, his eyes flicking in the direction of the casket and the family standing near it, accepting condolences, seeming very very far away.
         "What you expect, I guess, I don't know . . ." Jina shrugged, sighing as she did so. "It's hard to say, sometimes I wonder if it's sunk in . . . I mean, it's just . . ." her hands indicated empty air, tried to shape it into something coherent before giving up and just letting her hands drop. "It's so hard to believe," she finally concluded, in what perhaps was the most unoriginal but most spoken thought of the night.
         "Tell me about it," Brown replied, still staring in the direction of the casket. The way his sentence trailed off he appeared to be ready to say something else. But nothing came.
         Trying to break the sudden silence, Tristian asked, "Do they have any idea what happened? I mean, other than . . ." a detached part of him found it uproariously funny how none of them would speak of it, dancing around the conclusion, as if the room would rear and consume them for even daring to speak it. Like it was a party rife with denial instead of a moment to pay your respects. Respect means not being afraid to admit the truth, whatever the cost, whatever the truth might be.
         "Drugs," Jina almost mouthed, leaning in to barely whisper it. "That's what I keep hearing."
         Tristian swore he heard Brown curse under his breath, but outloud the man said, "I suspected that. To go . . . the way he did, it would have to be. That's not something you wake up one morning and just decide to do."
         "It was both of them," Jina said sadly. "They must have both been, you know, addicts." The word had to claw its way out of her mouth. Nobody wants to admit it, of course. Like the association just makes you all the dirtier. She seemed to give a small shudder. "I keep thinking about it, trying to imagine being, just being that . . . desperate." This time she did shiver, rubbing her arms as if cold. "I can't do it. I don't want to ever be able to imagine that."
         "Yeah . . ." Brown replied. He wasn't really staring at anything. Suddenly he started like he had been jolted awake, blinking and saying quickly, "No, no you don't want to be able to. Not ever." A second later he tapped Jina on the shoulder and said, "You been up there yet?"
         "A while ago, but if you want me to go up with you . . ."
         "No, no, you don't have to, I'll go . . ." A mirthless smile crossed his face, "It's just this line's not getting any shorter." Inclining his head to Tristian he said, "You coming?"
         Tristian started to answer in the affirmative but as he turned he spied someone in the corner. Narrowing his eyes and then turning back to Brown, he said, "I'll be along in a minute."
         Brown looked confused but nodded and left anyway, taking a step and taking his place in the shuffling procession.
         Tristian smiled at Jina, who returned the gesture before turning to head back to where she had come from. He watched her for a second, sensing more than seeing people dodging around him to get into the room. Voices hummed like unreadable static in his head, buzzing but never resolving. People were clumping into small groups, staking out territories in the folding chairs, old cliques reforming without a thought. It never changes, Tristian thought darkly. Death is just another event that happens to everyone but us. Just another reason to gather. Others were just standing by themselves, staring at their hands, at the air, watching the parade of no doubt unfamiliar faces flash by, lost in their own thoughts, or maybe trying not to reflect on anything at all. Even pleasant daydreams were pulled down in this place, the sober mood pressing from above and the hidden emotional despair latent in the center drawing everything closer, a whirlpool exerting a pull that was almost physical. You couldn't help but feel the way you did, here. Even if you didn't want to.
         Striding to the back of the room, Tristian wondered how much of the motion was of his own doing. Tugging. Lines. Pulling them along. Closer together? Really? Was that true? He had always read, in all the makeshift psychology texts and the pronouncements of the people that should have known better than to speak, that tragedy had a subtle weight to it. Tied to all of us, as it disappeared down the hole we had no choice but to be drawn closer together, rediscovering a strange kind of dissolved faith in the midst of our suffering. Tristian wasn't sure if he bought that completely. In a time like this, he felt separated from his own friends, stepping outside the circle and watching it all with a critical eye. Familiar faces fell in and out of the room's solution, eyes moist with walled off tears, features creased with a sorrow they didn't understand, streaked with a numbed ignorance. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. These things didn't happen. Tristian walked past two girls sitting on the couch, both crying openly. Neither seemed to know the other was there. Don't cry, he wanted to say to them. Not yet. He's not even in the ground. He's not completely lost to us yet.
         The person standing in the corner didn't even realize he was there until Tristian was just about on top of him. Arms crossed, posture stiffly guarded, he seemed to be staring right past Tristian.
         When Tristian's presence did finally register, he gave a noticeable start and almost lost his balance. If he had fallen it might have been comical. Since he didn't, it was merely somewhat sad.
         "Jesus Christ, Tristian," Will breathed, eyes going wide, seeming to doubt that the man was even there, "how the hell do you do that?"
         "It's not deliberate, trust me," Tristian told him, trying not to be amused and failing. They thought he was someone special, possessed of magical powers to go with his glowing weapon. When the real reason was that he was so ordinary that nobody ever noticed him. But no one wanted to believe that. "I just came over to say hello, since I saw you standing here alone."
         "Yeah and to scare the life . . ." Will stopped himself just in time. Self consciously adjusting his shirt, he said, "Damn." That was all he said for a second. Staring down at his shoes he added in a wavery voice, "We shouldn't be here, Tristian. We shouldn't. This isn't right."
         "No. It's not," Tristian agreed. Stealing a glance at the line leading up to the casket, he noticed it hadn't seemed to have moved at all.
         "The last time I saw him was last year, right around this time, I think . . ." Will said. "He was walking down the opposite side of the street and he saw him and called me and came running over. And I though, oh crap he's going to ask me for money or something." Will looked up sharply at Tristian. "How well did you know him?" he asked suddenly.
         The question took Tristian somewhat by surprise. "Not that well. Through you guys mostly. If I was out with you folks-"
         "And we all know how often that happened," Will interjected.
         "Exactly," Tristian admitted. "So I knew him but I guess I didn't know him. If that makes any sense."
         "Considering the stuff you talk about these days," Will replied with only the smallest of sighs, "that's as good as we're going to get I think." He sighed again, lacing his hands behind his head and resting it on the wall, "No, Don, he . . . used to make fun of you all the time when you weren't around. That's why I asked. Because I remember. We'd sit around and he'd start, out of nowhere a lot of times and . . . some of the stuff he said it was . . ." he smiled and shook his head, his eyes seeking another time, "it was pretty damn funny."
         "I can imagine," Tristian said. "Anything original? Or just the usual stuff?"
         "Usual stuff?" Will asked.
         "Oh you know . . ." and Tristian scrunched up his face and squeezed his voice, saying, "Haw where ya goin' with those books there, Tris. Gotta go run and study, right? Right? Get all those A's. Or maybe you'll just go stand in the corner and look at the wall, the girls luuuvv that . . ." He stopped and grinned at Will. "Like that. The usual stuff. I kept my ear to the ground back then. I may have been eccentric but I wasn't deaf."
         Will blinked, as if watching Tristian morph back from something else, and said, "I guess it was mostly things like that, he didn't know you that well . . . not as well as we did so he had to kind of go by the, er, Tristian stereotypes, so to speak."
         "You didn't help him out with material?"
         Will grinned back. "Yeah like I'm going to admit that to the man living the George Lucas lifestyle. I think I kept pretty quiet . . . I figured loyalty had to count for something." His eyes lost focus again and his grin got broader, almost bordering on the vestiges of a laugh. Glancing from side to side, he said rapidly, "God if there weren't so many people here . . . he used to do this great impression of your walk, he'd, you know, he'd say all those things you mentioned and he'd try to imitate your face and as he was doing it he was pacing around . . ." he snorted a little, trying to hold the laugh in. Like it was something illegal here. In this place. "Ah, it was just like you."
         Tristian gave him a confused stare. "Geez, I don't remember my walk being that distinctive."
         "I didn't think so either but then he'd start doing it, you know, imitating you and it was this . . . this stiff legged, near run, like you were in this race, like you were trying to outrace yourself but you weren't allowed to run so you were just walking as fast as you could . . . I can't really describe it now. I haven't seen you do it in a while."
         "That's good," Tristian replied, his relief not entirely feigned. "At least I cured myself of one bad habit."
         "Yeah it was really funny, watching him do that. I swear I nearly pissed myself a few times . . ." he trailed off, shaking his head and allowing himself just a small laugh. "Still," he added soberly, "I think he respected you, as much as he liked to rip you to pieces . . . because you did your own thing and didn't care what anyone thought about it and always seemed to know what you wanted to do . . . even when you were pretending otherwise."
         "I never pretended at all," came the straightfaced reply.
         "Sure you didn't," was all Will said, his face indicating what his words wouldn't say. His friends always saw through. Or so they thought. Was it because he threw out so many mirrors to deceive, or he only let them see what they expected to see? "We knew that, but I don't think Don did."
         "Or maybe you assumed there was a pretense when there really was none . . ." Tristian replied with a crooked smile.
         "Oh yeah like you really are that wacky . . ." Will retorted. "For the life of me, I'll never figure out why you acted the way you did . . ." he trailed off, his eyes again drawn to the apparent epicenter of the room.
         After a moment, he said, softly but firmly, "Why did he do it, Tristian? That's what I want to know."
         "Drugs," was all Tristian said, maybe too bluntly. As if that was the only answer. As if that explained everything.
         "Screw that, I know it was drugs," Will snapped, perhaps more harshly than he intended. Tristian let it slide. What else was he doing to say. "What the hell else could it be? But . . . why kill himself, why go that way . . ." his eyes drifted again, away from the casket. "Goddamned coward," he breathed, though all the malice had been drained from him long ago.
         "I don't know," Tristian said, slowly, awkwardly. It was both an admission and an attempt to change the subject.
         Fortunately circumstances conspired to change it for him.
         "Hey, Will, Tristian," came a voice perpendicular to them. Will's head snapped to the side and Tristian's pivoted to see Brian heading toward them. He hadn't recognized his voice at first, like it had been taken down a few notches and drained of energy. Even the shirt and tie he was wearing looked totally out of place on him, like it was constricting him, keeping him penned in and tied down.
         But the whole room was like that, he realized, as if seeing it all for the first time. From the elderly on down everyone seemed bent by this creeping weight. Each and every person. But it was in the younger faces that the effect could be measured most. Normally carefree expressions were warped, locked into the emotions of least resistance, sweeping through the limply packed crowds on auto-pilot, waiting for the person in the coffin to wake up from this sick dream and release them.
         "Hey, Brian," Will said, inclining his head in the other man's direction. Tristian muttered something while Brian shook his hand, giving him a chance to study his friend's face. It looked worn, reshaped by a sandpaper so fine that it might rip your skin away before you even felt its touch.
         But cheer was trying to break from his eyes and his face cracked into a grin despite itself. "God damn there's a lot of people here." That's because when you're young most of your friends are still alive to mourn you, a desolate voice moaned in Tristian's head. It's not that the young are automatically more popular, it's that there's just more people around to remember that they once gave a damn.
         "This is really a shame, you know," Brian continued, sounding like he was reciting something. Trying to make himself believe it. "I mean, it really is. I was talking to his sister, before and she's . . . she looks like she doesn't know what to believe anymore."
         "I wouldn't want to believe that was my brother in the casket either," Will stated, with just the tiniest edge to his voice.
         Brian laughed mirthlessly. "I don't want to believe it's my friend in the goddamn casket," he said, pointedly, pointlessly to Will. Tristian felt like he was regaining his bystander status. Just an observer, set about merely to record. These lives. These people. Why did you leave it? Why did you do it? "You want to know something sick, I mean sick, for a second, on the way here just for a second I wondered if it was going to be open casket or not . . ."
         "It's not," Will said quickly, cutting him off before he could do anymore damage.
         "Don't you think I realized that . . ." Brian nearly growled before catching himself and seeming to shrink a bit. "Yeah," he said, quieter, "it was messed up. This is messed up." Slipping his hands into his pockets he seemed to turn off completely and withdraw.
         Will and Tristian exchanged awkward glances, Tristian giving the smallest of shrugs, but not saying anything else.
         "How are you doing, Tristian?" Brian asked suddenly, not tearing his eyes away from some distant space between him and Will.
         "Okay," Tristian replied noncommittally. "I didn't know him as well as the rest of you but . . . it's still a shock."
         "Yeah," Brian said, like he hadn't expected an answer. "It was and it wasn't." He didn't elaborate further but Tristian got the impression Brian wanted to say something else to him. Ask him about something.
         But he didn't. Instead he said, "Ah, listen . . . in another half hour or so when this is over, a couple of us were going to the diner, you know, just for a bit." We mourn our own in our own way. The messages we never say. Pass the cups around and pretend it all means something. "You guys are welcome to join us . . . and anyone else you can think of." Tristian could think of folks that Brian wouldn't have wanted there. But he was fairly sure the invitation only extended to humans though. Just a hunch.
         "Yeah, I'll probably come, thanks . . ." Will replied.
         "I'll see what I can do," Tristian told him.
         Brian evinced a tiny smile. "Goddamn you never change."
         "That's what I've been telling him," Will said.
         "Well try to poke out of your shell and come out just this one night, okay?" Brian asked, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. "You stay away too long we'll start to take it personally."
         Tristian only glanced down at the ground and smiled neutrally. "Sure, Brian, whatever you say."
         Brian looked to Will for support. "He's patronizing me. I'm nice to this bastard for once and he goes and patronizes me. Is that the thanks I get?" His voice was begging for humor, for someone to stand up and notice and laugh and say it's not so bad. "You talk to him, Will, I've done all I can."
         "I'll do that. But he's more stubborn than I am persuasive," Will laughed. But even that sound seemed stifled. Every voice around them came from some kind of weird mumbling contest, trying to see who could talk the quietest. "Aren't you, Tristian?"
         "No comment."
         "What did I tell you?" Will said, shrugging to Brian. The other man merely laughed and turned to walk away, disappearing all too quickly into a crowd that seemed built of layers. Sucked into the deepest levels, it's an upward struggle all the way out. But sometimes the only way out is in. The room was much darker now than when he and Brown had walked in, which was strange to him. Tristian had expected his eyes to adjust but the growing night outside matched his vision shade by shade. The textured shadows draped liberally around the room made everyone seem bigger than they actually were. A gathering of sobbing, murmuring dark monks, shuffling along in their bizarre rituals, understood only by those who had made it inside. But in takes you back out. So you never understand. It's just pantomime to you. Follow the paces but never feel any of it. A dancestep without passion. A communal hop that nobody can remember starting. But everyone is afraid to stop. Because then they'll have to admit that it was for no reason at all.
         Behind him the line still stretched out, implacable. Faces blended into a red eyed, sniffling whole, not budging at all. But it had moved.
         Chuckling softly, as if afraid of being overheard, Will looked at his watch and said, "God, no offense to Don but I'll be glad as hell to get out of here."
         "Is there a lot of time left?" Tristian asked. He had no idea how long he had been here. Someone once told him Time had no meaning anywhere. But that couldn't be true. We define our steps by time. How else could we define this as a tragedy if not for the pitiful length of time he had lived? If time had no meaning, then every death was inherently meaningless. It's all happened already. Every moment laid out like a deck of cards.
         Tristian suspected he had been lied to. Somewhere, he desperately hoped that was the case.
         "About a half hour. Though everyone will probably hang around until they get kicked out. Some of these guys haven't seen each other in years." And this is the only way they see each other now, was the silent implication. Weddings and funerals. Hopefully more of the former than the latter but as tonight was showing, you just couldn't be sure of anything these days.
         "Hm . . ." Tristian mused. "Listen, I'm going to get in line, talk to his family a bit . . . you want to come?"
         Will blinked before answering. "Ah, not right now. In a bit. Before I leave. But . . . just not right now. Okay?"
         Tristian tried not to give him a strange look and halfway succeeded. Will didn't react to it, wrapped up in his own uncomfortable thoughts.
         "Sure, sure, no problem . . ." Tristian responded, before digging his hands into his pockets and slipping away. The packed nature of the crowd was just an illusion, he found. Gaps and pockets were everywhere, not so much a crowd as a multitude of small groups all in the same place for a vaguely common purpose. None of them noticed his passage. He didn't expect them to.
         When he reached the line he had barely realized he had even made it. It just began from nowhere, a queue springing from oblivion. Taking his place into it, he tried not to listen to other conversations, but at the same time he didn't want to be wrapped up in his own thoughts. He wasn't here to inbreed with his own thinking, he was here to pay respects to someone who maybe deserved better. Someone that he hoped had deserved better.
         Tatters of talk floated around him, fragments with no anchor. Every other minute or so, maybe sooner, the line shuffled forward a few steps. Someone kept crying over and over nearby, an endless hiccuping sound, like an engine failing to start. A voice nearby kept insisting "I knew this was going to happen," like the actual existence of the knowledge may have made some kind of difference. Like it made any difference now. An attractive girl sat in the corner, her face sad and looking slightly uncomfortable in her black dress. An old girlfriend, perhaps? He'd never know. He didn't want to know. Too many stories here, too many lives tangled up in some strange opaque mess. He'd spent the last few months trying to simplify his life and every time he turned around another knot was pulled around him.
         Tristian wanted to talk to someone about this, sort it all out. But that was impossible. Everyone was too close and he wasn't close enough. Suddenly he wished he had known Donald better, so that maybe he could share in this jagged sorrow that was plaguing the rest of the room, share in it and join with it and maybe feel like part of something for once. Tear something shining out of tragedy.
         But, no, he had to stand to the side and watch the light being born, feeling the heat but never the radiance. Tristian wasn't exactly sure how he felt about that. He accepted it, he supposed. There wasn't much else he could do. You couldn't manufacture sorrow or sadness, it had to exist to resonate. Otherwise it was nothing but a poor man's theatre.
         Abruptly someone appeared at his elbow. His arm began to shift into a defensive striking position as soon as the shape entered his peripheral vision. No. He covered the sudden motion by jamming his hand into his pocket, nearly pulling a muscle in the process.
         "How's Will and Brian?" Brown's voice said pleasantly into his ear, seeming very loud in its proximity.
         "Don't do that," he hissed in reply.
         "What are you . . . oh . . ." and he could sense Brown's eyes falling on his arm. The other man gave a small chuckle from the back of his throat. "That would have been embarrassing."
         "For both of us," Tristian agreed. Letting his arm relax, he sighed and tried to answer Brown's question. "They're trying to take it well and not entirely succeeding."
         "I can understand that," and his voice had a hazy quality that suggested he understood all too well. "I think I saw Brian actually crying before. It was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen."
         "Will looked like he was about to," Tristian admitted. "I think that's why he isn't coming over here."
         "Doesn't want to lose his cool," Brown mumbled sarcastically. "Not even now. Typical Will."
         "He came, didn't he?" Tristian countered. "That must have been hard enough."
         "Of course. You're right," Brown replied. "Sorry. Things like this put me on edge." He didn't sound sorry at all. He tried to cover it with a light laugh. "That's why I came back here. To avoid the inevitable."
         "You didn't talk to his family yet?"
         "No . . . I saw you get in line and figured you could use some company."
         Tristian wasn't sure how much of that he believed but he took it at face value anyway. No sense in contesting it. In any event they were nearly there anyway, with only about three or four people ahead of them.
         He could see the family now. No longer were they mobile mannequin caricatures, finely rendered stick figures as seen through wrong way binoculars. His parents were there, though his father was sitting down in one of the nearby chairs. As they shuffled closer, he could see the incredible wear on the man's face, a man who felt he had been through hell and didn't care if anyone else saw the ravages. His mother was standing, greeting people, and her balance was rock solid. For some reason he expected her to be unsteady, buffeted by the waves of her own torrential emotions, her expression sad but oddly resigned, as if she had known this was coming for years and had dreaded the day above anything. And now that it had come and passed, all she could do was try and make it through. Tristian felt extremely guilty that he didn't remember their names. He was certain they had met before, maybe at an awards ceremony, graduation, something. For some reason the failure to recollect bothered him immensely. Like he didn't care enough. Like even the simplest facts weren't worth his time. Thirty languages he had never uttered a word of and probably never would were wound like fine coil in his head. And yet he couldn't remember. Dammit. He was better than that. He knew he was.
         The only reason he knew Donald's sister's name was because Brown had mentioned it before. Jackie. A short slim pretty girl, not much younger than he was, she stood slightly apart from her parents, looking composed but hesitant. Her hands were folded almost demurely in front of her, but occasionally they would twitch, as if she wasn't sure what to do with her hands. Or herself. Wanting to mourn but wanting this public mourning to end so she could do it in her own way. Tristian had no idea what it was like to lose a sibling, a brother, someone you grow up with and learn from and maybe once in a while even look up to and suddenly they're gone and it's just you. Reduced to an only child within a day. Tristian couldn't even understand it, could never hope to. It must be like losing an arm, you don't realize how much you miss it until you go to use it. That's when it hits you. Hits everyone.
         Almost there. Next to him Brown sucked in a calming breath, casually trying to steel himself. Tristian didn't blame him. Moments like these were always uncertain, like you expected someone to break into hysterics at any moment, clawing and tearfully begging you for answers, when in the end all you could do was stand there and hope it stopped soon. The events that appeared the calmest hid the greatest turmoil.
         Then they were there. Jackie gave them both a shy smile, perhaps recognizing them, perhaps not. The motion was probably practiced and automatic by this time of night. Tristian returned it anyway and nodded politely.
         Donald's mother, whose name was still maddeningly escaping him, let her eyes linger on him for a second, like he was a blur she couldn't focus on, before settling on Brown. The effect was startling. Those eyes widened and she went forward to meet Brown's embrace.
         "Joseph Brown!" she said, grabbing him tightly. His father seemed to stir at the mention of the name, but did nothing else. "I never thought you'd be here. Oh my God you've barely changed at all."
         "Ah, thank you, Mrs Wintersfield," Brown said nervously, taking a half step back.
         "They said you'd just vanished. Donald always wondered where you had gone. Frustrated the hell out of him, that you never said. That you never told him where you went."
         Jackie was giving Brown a strange look, like she vaguely remembered him but the face wasn't falling completely into focus. She appeared to glance at Tristian for help, but all he could do was give an uncertain shrug.
         "I . . . went away. I'm sorry, I had to."
         "At least you're here, now."
         Taking a step toward the girl, Tristian said to her, "I'm sorry, you know, about your brother. For your loss." It felt like the right thing to say. It felt too stilted and formal.
         "Thank you," she said, almost seeming to mean it. Giving a nervous smile, she hesitantly pushed some hair back her ear. "It's, ah, it's really strange." Catching herself, she continued, "No, it's worse than strange, it's . . . I don't know," she finally admitted, looking to Tristian as if he might have answers. "I don't know what it is."
         Behind him, Brown said, "I wish I could have been here earlier, you know, to . . . to see him before . . ."
         "It's okay, you're here now. And with any luck, he knows that. Wherever he is."
         To Jackie, Tristian said, "Everyone else is probably saying the same thing." Did he mean that as comforting? He didn't know. These words were springing out of him almost of their own volition.
         "I don't know," she said, frowning. "I guess so. I don't even really know what to think, I mean, my brother, he . . . he had his problems and I guess, I think I should be happy now that he's . . . that's he in this better place where there aren't these problems, but . . . I don't know," she said again, glancing at the ground. Her voice had fallen into nearly a whisper. Tristian felt like an errant eavesdropper. "I hope wherever he is, that it's better. That he's in a better place. I really hope so."
         ". . . but I'm really sorry, I don't even know what to say . . . " came Brown's voice.
         "It's okay. Don't be. Don . . . whatever was plaguing him, it's not anymore and I wish he hadn't . . . done what he did but he made his decisions."
         Looking past Tristian, Jackie tapped his arm. "Is that really Joe Brown?"
         Glancing in his direction, Tristian confirmed, "Yes, it is."
         "Oh." She looked very surprised. "They said he had vanished. Just one day . . . gone." She gave a small laugh. "Don told me that actually. But I guess he was putting me on."
         "No, no he wasn't . . . not that he knew of. We all thought he had disappeared," Tristian said. "But he just went away."
         "And now he's back," Jackie said, still staring at Brown. "Where did he go?" she asked.
         "Ah . . . you'll have to ask him about that." And that was the best answer Tristian could give. He didn't know how open Brown was being with his working life and didn't want to risk contradicting his friend. Besides, let Brown craft his own deceptions, Tristian had his own plate full to contemplate. A plate he had had his fill of long ago.
         "Oh, let me go say hello to him, then," Jackie told him, already taking a step past him to go to Brown. Before she departed she paused for a moment to say, "It was nice meeting you though, thanks so much for coming . . ." briefly laying a hand on his shoulder. The pressure lingered even after she was gone. Amusingly, he realized he had never told her his name. Just as well.
         This left Tristian with nothing between him and the casket. He turned in a half circle, trying to see if he had any company. Nobody was around. He felt like he was in another room entirely.
         "It is you . . ." came Jackie's voice. Brown's reply was lost to his ears.
         Feeling eyes on him, he turned to see Donald's father staring intently at him. There was an aching question in his eyes, not so much directed to Tristian but to someone beyond him, perhaps just over his shoulder. He didn't dare look. The sensation made him feel constricted and restrained. Trying to smile politely didn't work at all, his muscles simply refused to function. The moment was pressing on him, grimly, inexorably.
         And then, almost anti-climatically, Donald's father turned toward another man coming over to give his condolences and the moment evaporated. Just like that. In the aftermath Tristian felt a bit silly, realizing that he had been overreacting. The question, whatever it had been, wasn't for him, it never had been. It had never been about him.
         ". . . you guys used to tease me all the time, I remember . . ."
         ". . . that was our job, being a sister didn't mean you weren't an underclassmen . . ."
         ". . . did you do that to my daughter . . ."
         Shaking his head at his own actions, he quickly sobered up as he regarded the silent casket before him. Grey and functional, with barely any hint of opulence so common to other coffins, it looked one step above complete minimalism, to just a cardboard box to hold his remains. But what else did you need, in the end? What else would he have wanted? A fancy box, to celebrate his abruptly severed life and tragic end? Would that have sufficed?
         Taking another step closer to it, he positioned himself next to the cushions set aside for kneeling and merely stood with his hands folded and his head bowed. For him, it felt appropriate.
         ". . . really in the military, I'm sorry Joseph but I never could see you there, you were too much of a maverick . . ."
         ". . . what makes you think I've changed . . ."
         Prayers and rituals sprang to his mind almost immediately paraded before him, starving actors lining up for an audition to the cheapest part available. For the lack of anything else, he said a brief prayer, one that he remembered from his youth, from his churchgoing days.
         When that was done, all too quickly, the only space that remained was the hollow for his own thoughts.
         ". . . heard it on the radio but didn't believe it was him, you never expect it to be someone you know and then not only is it someone you know . . ."
         "I know . . . I wish he hadn't . . ."
         ". . . first thing I said, I sat there and cried and said, Don why couldn't you have found a better way . . ."
         So.
         So, Donald. Tell me this then.
         Was it worth it?
         Was it?
         To see your mother and your father and your sister and your friends, oh all your friends all these people you probably thought had forgotten about you, all of them sad and sorry and sobbing, they're all here Donald, they're all here because you're not here, because of what you did. What do you think about that, Donald, if you're thinking at all?
         ". . . living with some girl and then they lost the apartment, you know, because of what they were doing, but even if I had known . . ."
         ". . . no, you did all you could . . ."
         ". . . I like to think that . . ."
         Do you realize now, if you're sitting up there looking down, do you know do you see what a horrible mistake you made? That you ripped yourself away from them when they could have helped you the most, you separated yourself from everyone who ever cared about you and said no, nobody wants to help me anymore and then went and did the only damn thing that made any sort of sense to you. Is that what happened?
         ". . . I want to think that . . ."
         They say drugs. They say suicide. They throw these words around like they know what they mean. Perhaps they do. You did, you must have, you were up so close that you could feel the steam from your breath caking on the glass that you were bumping right up against, you saw how little it would take to shatter and lose everything, to lose every goddamn thing you ever cared about and tell everyone you ever knew that you never cared about any of them and god damn you, you went and did it anyway.
         ". . . but I'm his mother and he's my son and I would have done anything and in the end I just don't know . . ."
         Was it arrogance, Donald? Did you think nobody would care? Or that they'd happen to be rid of your assumed burden? Or were you just so desperate that you didn't think? Just clawing at the bottom of the hole, hoping for some purchase back up but only stripping away your fingernails and getting blood all over your hands and watching the light get eaten away bit by bloody bit?
         Oh, Donald, why didn't you see? That there's never only one way out. That if you take a second to search, the real exit is always there, marked with a faded and burnt out neon sign, fraught with wreckage and waste, sometimes seeming just out of reach, but a way up just the same.
         ". . . and who's that . . ."
         So I'm sorry you're dead, Donald, I'm sorry it had to end like his. Because even though we weren't close friends we were almost friends and this shouldn't have happened. Not to you.
         ". . . that's who that is, surprised you didn't . . ."
         Not to anyone.
         ". . . didn't even recognize him, I'm so sorry . . ."
         ". . . don't worry he gets that a lot . . ."
         So, Donald, I want you to do this, if you can, if you haven't already. Take a good look at what got you up there, what led you there, what you did to make sure you never got old . . .
         ". . . it's true then isn't it, what they say, what I've heard, it's true, right . . ."
         . . . and I want you to ask yourself.
         Was it worth it?
         He took a shuddering breath and opened eyes that he didn't know he had closed. Blinking, he lifted his head to find the room surprisingly unchanged. How long had he stood there? Probably only a minute, but it had felt so much longer. Dark thoughts always seem to move so slowly. Unwilling to be evicted. The surprising intensity had left him feeling a bit drained, he hadn't realized how strongly he felt about Donald's death. Maybe because he'd been so close to dying more than a few times in the last few months. Tristian wondered if Brown had been up here, with him while he paid his respects. Probably not, that had sounded like his voice in the background. People always wanted to talk to him, find out how he'd been. The constant mystique of his disappearance. That's one way to preserve your popularity. Bow out why you're still on top. Then everyone thinks of you with a smile.
         Step out while on the decline, and it's nothing but tears all around.
         I hope you're still listening.
         A footstep scuffed the floor behind him. He turned slowly, feeling a light touch on his shoulder.
         Jackie was standing there. Her mother was still talking to Brown, much to the vaguely masked irritation of those waiting in line behind him. Neither of them seemed to care. That was Brown's effect on people. Maybe time did have no meaning.
         "It's . . . Tristian? Isn't it?" she asked him. Her voice was quavering and he had no idea why.
         Then he caught sight of something in her eyes.
         And he suddenly felt very afraid.
         "Yes. That's me," he answered neutrally.
         "I'm sorry I didn't . . . I didn't before . . ." her words stumbled, fell out of sense, she stopped talking, rubbed her eyes as if confused and tried to continue "I'm sorry, it's just that . . . that I've heard what . . . what people say about you . . ."
         It took everything he had not to take a step backwards.
         "And . . . they . . ." not looking at him anymore, eyes flickering everywhere but at his presence, "they say that you, you have all the answers, or not you maybe but people you know or maybe even you, I don't, I really . . ." her voice failed again, but he noticed it was creeping up in volume gradually. He could sense eyes slowly focusing on the two of them, paired spotlights attracted to any sordid human drama, anything to liven the night. Ooh ooh front seats here we come.
         Her eyes were reddening as he watched her, like her face was leaking right while he stood there helpless to do anything. He wanted to stop her. He couldn't bring himself to. "And so I just wanted to know, I just . . ." she rubbed her face again, her voice cracking and falling like shards of glass between the two of them, littering the air, puncturing the very ground.
         "I just want to know why he did it? Why did he kill himself?" The words exploded from, her body torqued toward him with enough inherent violence that he did take a step back. His hand flexed and the object at his belt seemed to jerk. No. No. He stayed his hand. No.
         "Can you tell me that?" she asked, her voice shaking, her words drawn and stretched out, the holes ripped into the fabric even she tried to hold it all together. "Because I've thought about it and thought about it and I just can't find any answers and . . ." everyone was staring at them now, at this festering incident unfolding for the audience at home, "all I want to know is why?
         "Why did he do it? I keep asking and nobody knows and I just want to know. Someone has to know." Her face, her posture, everything about her was begging for this, the aching need twisted him more than anything. "Please? Can you tell me? Can you? Can you tell me why?"
         A moment of complete silence passed. Tristian felt an entire room of mourners fixed on him. He didn't know what to say. He wished someone would tell him. But they had asked him first, with her words and their eyes and with their emotions laid bare, payment for a service he could never hope to render.
         And in the end he looked the girl in the face and a million patronizing answers spread over his brain like a flock of birds, a million instantly rejected answers.
         So he let his eyes focus past her, let her features become blurred and indistinct, because he didn't want to see her face. Didn't want to see disappointment coat her like a too fine dust.
         Because the only thing he could say was maybe the only honest sentiment he had heard all night.
         "I . . . I don't know . . ." he whispered, not even sure if she heard him.
         Then, without another word, he tautly spun on his heel and walked away as fast as he could.