Departed - Ties that Bind - A Short Story

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

She’s only four years old and unaffected by the death or sorrows. A little innocent joy living free of the worldly worries. But that will soon change, I hate that part of growing up.

“Hey, why are they burying Aunt Gloria? She can’t bake those yummy cookies and cakes in the ground! Stop!” she screams.

The people who weren’t already crying, allowed tears to roll down their grim faces. “Stop it!” She screams, tears trickle down her unusually gloomy face, and she continues whining. She screamed, only once suddenly, a short piercing cry that quickly dwindled, as the body was being wrapped.

Unexpectedly, Mary bends down and hugs Diana. “Diana, she’s going to rest in peace and sleep.” Mary whispers, “Don’t be too loud or you’ll wake her.”

Diana cuddles Mary and wails. She strokes her hair and her back lovingly and gives her an assuring embrace. That just overpowers me. I start shedding tears with no signs of stopping, causing a chain reaction in the small group standing to see Gloria be buried in the ground. Soon everyone who loved Gloria cries uncontrollably. No one is consolable.

Seventy-eight years on the earth and this is what her life amounted to; body lowered into the dark rain-kissed soil, the damp earth was perfect for burying, dark like molasses where all the creepy creatures wriggle their way under the soil, where there was no light, encompassed in a crudely built six by two wooden box. No luxury, no cushioning, no lining, no pretense that this was a place to put the dead, decaying slowly, piece by piece — skin, flesh and bones. The lid was propped against the wall, and a hammer and a box of large iron nails lay at its side on the ground. All that was missing was her festering body waiting to be laid into the baked naked earth locked in a coffin.

As I stood there, they slowly lowered her coffin into the hole dug up in the damp earth, the rain had washed the streets clean last night and nowhere was the wetness more obvious than in the muddy graveyard. The closest relatives take turns with the spade, and others with their hands start covering her inch by inch with the soil around it, to completely be engulfed into the ground, as though she was never a part of our side.

“You will be missed,” I say softly as the coffin was no longer visible under the debris of fine pebble and rocks, and the mud enshrouds it gently and securely like it was it's own.

©Shweta, 2020. All Rights Reserved.

Originally published in The Weekly Knob