Whenever you watch a movie or read a book wherein a main character dies, the day of the funeral is always rainy, a reflection on the moods of all those in attendance. It seemed a cruel joke when the morning of Sherlock's dawned bright and cold. Just like him, thought John. He laughed bitterly, as the alternative was crying, and he'd already had enough of that to last a lifetime. A tap on his door from Mrs. Hudson snapped him out of his reminisces. "It's time to go now. You don't want to be late, do you?" Her voice was thick with unspilt tears. John, with a deep breath, followed her out of 221B, not daring to look around. Everything in the flat- the window where he stood and played violin, his skull on the mantelpiece, his chair- oh, his chair- reminded John of the fact that he would never again look into Sherlock's eyes. He slammed the door behind him with a kind of bitterness unexpected from a man who was grieving the loss of a dear friend.
John looked around the cemetery. He recognised nearly everyone there: Lestrade, Anderson, and Dovonan- all with rather ill expressions; Mycroft, standing in a corner with his face turned away, his umbrella at his side; and an assortment of people whom he assumed were Sherlock's relatives. The Beatles's song Eleanor Rigby ran through his head:
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.
Of all the people in the world - even just in London - whose lives Sherlock had touched, fewer than twenty show up? As if reading John's mind, Mycroft walked up to him. "The world is an ignorant place, Doctor Watson. You never know it until it's put to the test."
This meant almost literally nothing to John, just like most of the things Mycroft said. Mycroft's pretentious way of speaking had always been a sort of riddle to John, and he was really not in the mood for riddles at the moment. Presently, a pastor stepped up to the closed-tight casket containing Sherlock's body - his body. That man, that wonderful, brilliant man, nothing but a corpse. His mind was gone, deteriorating. He would never again smile at John, or laugh, or...
John's self-control shattered, and he broke out in hysterical sobs.
"Sherlock Holmes was a great man..." The pastor droned on, with a monotone voice and a fill-in-the-blanks speech. John payed him no attention, trying to distract himself in any way possible. Everything in his mind, however obscure, however random, had a lingering memory of Sherlock attached to it. He couldn't take it another minute. John ran away from the cemetery, tears dripping down his face, and called for a cab.
