Avarice
Dedicated to William Faulkner
When Mister Napoleon died our entire community went to his funeral: the men out of respect for a fallen brother and the women out of respect for a suitor that cunningly escaped them. How he managed to lead six women and court three others is a mystery to me and isn't necessary important, but it does lead to questions such as 'how did he die so suddenly?'
My first supposition was that someone, namely his wife, Edith, killed him with arsenic, for there was a crate of it in the living room of their house with a rather disturbing label: rat poison. I paid no mind to it and continued with the customary ritual of walking over to the open faced coffin and placing a personally selected flower. For this occasion, I brought a pink cyclamen. Placing it properly and turning toward the widow who stood near the display, I said nothing and she embraced me out of faux sympathy.
"I'm glad you came today," she said, tears masking her obvious happiness. She held me rather loose, as if she were about to drop me. Her distance from my face and wandering eyes gave me the impression that my supposition was true. I wasn't about to make a show of it though, but I wasn't about to be a hypocrite either.
I didn't say how much of a grand person he was or that he will be missed. I hardly knew him so such sanctification from me would be lukewarm. Even if she wanted me to say something grandiose I would simply supply the truth and complement on the arrangement of the flowers or the amount of mourners that came, for you can always tell if someone was loved or hated by how many people arrive at the funeral. Usually, you can tell which camp people belong to by the way they react to the whole ordeal and by the looks of things, Napoleon had few condemners.
"At least he died happily." I replied. Not necessarily the answer I would have liked to have said but it was what I went with. Suggestio falsi seemed to be the lesser of two evils when compared to hypocrisy. In truth, Napoleon did die happy, in the end (for we all go happily) but the physical act of dying was skeptical. It was something of an enigma and it was one that was starting to peeve me because no one else seemed to be bothered by it. Apparently there is no cause for alarm when someone who was alive two days ago is now dead in his living room.
Looking for some type of solace in this madness was Trufflehunter. He was over in the corner soothing Miss Dover, an intellectual ferret who's main source of income was housekeeping. Her tears were expected, for she was the grandmother and losing your only grandson has to be abstruse on the psyche.
"There Miss Dover," Trufflehunter said with sincerity, "it isn't goodbye forever."
"Yes it is." She said.
"Don't you believe in Him?" The badger asked.
"What good is it believing in something that's never there?" She asked, face showing disconsolateness. It was as if she saw no end to this depression- seeing herself crippled in three years and dead in five. The badger smiled hypocritically. I could tell that Trufflehunter had no idea who Napoleon was- he never knew him, spoke with him, or even seen him before. The very idea of him being here was ludicrous and almost insulting. I had reason enough to issue personal reprimands against him. Glad I these thoughts to myself.
"The good in believing in something at all is beautiful don't you think?" Trufflehunter said.
"Beautiful is an understatement." Miss Dover replied. "He has abandoned me."
"No, He's testing you."
Miss Dover laughed spitefully, almost like a cackling shrew. "Some test. What does he want me to do, be miserable and never love again?"
Trufflehunter looked towards me, apparently my personal experience with grief and his lack of experience prompted him to believe that I was an expert grief counselor. I was actually happy to walk over for Edith was beginning to show signs of her foul play by being less and less mournful and more jovial about the whole business. Not that you can't be jovial at funerals, but Edith's jovialness was border line psychopathic. She looked towards Edna, almost reveling in her grief, as if Edna's misery was the reason for the show.
"What's going on?" I asked as if I didn't know.
"I've been forsaken!" Dover cried, eyes exploding into waterfalls. "There is no happiness to be felt here anymore." She dried her eyes.
"Maybe if I just do myself in the world would be brighter." She said.
"Death is never a resolve to death." I said quickly but as encouragingly as possible.
"Then what would you have me do?" She asked. "Grieving, by the way I see it, causes depression and depression leads to irrational thinking and irrational thinking is what killed George."
George Dover, a lawyer respectively, was one of those ferrets whose legal charismata outmatched his social skills. He was very introverted which (in my circles) seemed a bit off. I personally found it charming. To be honest, I laughed at Edna(Miss Dover)'s remark because George was the last person on Earth to think irrationally about anything. One time he made an meticulous report entitled "The Concepts of War and Battle Strategy" (which was splendid by the way- without that report the war would've been lost).
"Irrational thinking did not do Mister Dover in," I said, "it was the malicious act of a hunter."
Edna nodded, "Yes," she said, voice a bit distressed and disheartened that I had to mention her late husband. "I'm slightly dismayed at the fact that you smirk at his memory."
"On the contrary," I said, "I think it rather natural to reminiscence fond memories of someone. Your husband was a scholar as he was a prankster. Why, I remember a time when he got me believing I carried The Plague by growing 'deathly ill' whenever I was around him."
"Oh yes!" Trufflehunter said smiling, "I remember that very well. He was always one to laugh- at himself and everyone else. I'll miss that fellow."
Edna smiled a bit, it was as for a moment her grief had subsided and the world seemed relatively normal. "Napoleon wasn't too fond of him though," she said, "then again, he wasn't too fond of anyone really. Especially after-"
"Edna!" Edith called her over, "Would you come over here for a moment?"
She left and slowly made her way to the 'grieving widow'. Something in her stride told me that whatever it was that awaited her wasn't going to be pleasant. My tail swayed side to side, sweeping the floor as I entered deductive thought.
The coffin was filling up with flowers and the well wishers were dispersed in their own private circles of conversation. Edith was beside the catafalque standing there like some disappointed parent. Her eyes locked on Edna's soul, searching to destroy whatever hope or light that was left and convert it into contempt and resentment.
"Yes?" Edna asked.
Edith whispered something inaudible. Although I could not make out the words I knew the words weren't kind because when the conversation was over Edna started crying again. She turned and proceeded to walk back over, slower this time. She slouched her shoulders and let her feet drag behind her as if she were a walking corpse.
"What's wrong?" Trufflehunter asked. "What did she say?"
"I have to go now." Edna said gravely with almost no emotion whatsoever. "You won't see me tomorrow."
"What are you talking about?" The badger asked again, this time blocking her way. She looked up at him and her eyes spoke for her. Trufflehunter stood aside and looked toward me.
"I'll see her home and look after her till I get an answer." He said.
"Good," I replied, "I'll see if I can figure out what went on between them."
I watched him take Edna out. Call me cynical, but I could sense a blooming love between them. For every single person who hold hands the way they did ends up falling for each other- at least that's how fairy tales and legends work. All that was missing was a steady rain.
Mustering all the dignity and courage I possessed, I entered the field of battle, dawning not the blade but logic and reason as the weapon of choice. She smiled smugly, apparently understanding my reasoning for coming over with such conviction and ambition.
"So," Edith said, "come to defend all honor once again?"
I said nothing. Silence, I've learned, is the best resource when you don't want to be found out. Instead, I watched her eyes. They darted from left and right, attempting to find some type of safety- a corner to hide in, a person to look at, she found none and settled on me.
"I see, well," she crossed her arms, "I can play the silent game too."
"As much as I would love to I have some business to discuss." I said.
"Let's go into the back," she said motioning towards a hallway, "we can discuss it privately."
I looked around, the mourners were beginning to leave or talk about happier things such as the weather or dinner plans. "I see no trouble in discussing this here."
"I don't want this to be a public affair."
I smiled deceitfully and leaned in, grabbing her arm tightly for good measure- I wanted to get a message across. Trembling, she turned her head back to see if anyone would come to her assistance. No one did. They just kept to their side conversations.
"W-what do you want?" She asked.
"Answers to questions." I said. "What did you say to Edna to make her burst into tears like that? Surely it wasn't anything too polite."
"No," Edith said, rolling her eyes, "it wasn't."
"Mind repeating it for me?"
Edith shook her head. She was smarter than I originally perceived- she was not about to do anything that would incriminate herself. She pulled herself away, but I pulled her back, letting her know that I wasn't about to leave without the answers I came for.
She leaned down and whispered one of the worst remarks to ever graze the world. It was obscene, vulgar, blasphemous and so perverse that it made my stomach churn and my head spin. I swallowed my disgust and left her be, save for a few words.
"I hope you realize the severity of this." I said.
She walked towards her uncle, paying me no mind at all, loosing herself in her fiction of grief and misery.
"Are you alright?" Her uncle asked.
"Yes." Edith replied, turning back towards me, eyes speaking of fear. "I'm alright."
I walked towards her nonchalantly. I tried my best to give no hints of aggression or malice but nonetheless, she quickly made her way into the dark recesses of the hallway. At this, those who were still left, turned and looked to me as if I had committed sacrilege. The uncle in particular, took a step in defense.
"How dare you insult a widow with the dead present?" He asked me.
"How ignorance and arrogance blind you and make you innocent from the truth." I answered and followed Edith into the hallway.
The hallway was narrow, and like grief, darkness seemingly filled the place. Edith was at the end of it, crouching on the floor, hiding from the world like a cursed foundling. Hungry, poor, decrepit and yearning to be brought back into the realm of forgiveness and understanding, she cried weighted tears of regret and loss. Her eyes were closed, and as I approached, she hid her head from me, as if I were to be some demon to be feared.
"Go away!" She cried literally and figuratively.
I shook my head and sat down on the floor. "Why did you say that to her?" I asked.
"Because," Edith said, looking towards me a little but still concealing herself, "you were all laughing and carrying on happily. I wanted to remind her the reason why she was alive."
"You blackmailed her with no justification." I said. "That is cause for concern."
She nodded, "I know you think I'm crazy, most people do."
If that isn't the understatement of the year, I don't know what is. Looking at her again, I no longer saw someone who was psychopathic as well as extremely jealous and sadistic but someone who went astray some time ago and never realized it. I reached out for her again, this time, the gesture was not of deception or force. She took it the way I wanted her to and turned towards me. Her face was carved into canyons of heartache and epiphany.
"I never wanted it to be this way." She said. "I never meant to harm anyone. I just wanted to have a happy marriage."
She inhaled and exhaled, opening her eyes and seeing me there gave her the strength to embrace me, this time with sincerity. I embraced her back, accepting this as a sign of repentance.
"Oh what have I done?" She asked.
"You created a web of jealousy that goes beyond the boundaries of avarice in love and into the realm of Judgment." I said. "Whatever conspired between you, George, Edna, and your husband is not my concern, but what is my concern is your understanding of this: you will never be loved the same way again."
"I don't need you to condemn me." Edith said.
"Who said I was?" I replied. "I was simply stating facts."
I stood up after that and left the withering rose to the bed which she made for herself and walked out of the place, noticing a clean sword on the mantel piece, the crate of arsenic and Napoleon, who sat there dead with a smile on his face.