Disclaimer: I do not own YGO or the MCR song "Mama" (although it is my mother's ringtone)
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."
I was four year olds when I first heard those words spoken over a casket. I hadn't cried, I had no reason to. The woman was of no relation to me. I was only there because Father hadn't found a sitter and was forced to bring me to the work. Ishtar Funeral Home, where the dead could rest and the living wept incessantly.
Don't misunderstand, I loved my job. I could find you the best priest, rabbi, pastor, even shaman and witch doctor if need be. I knew where to find the freshest flowers and imported the finest coffins. My mastery of mortician science was impeccable; you'd be fooled into believing they were peacefully sleeping. I was born into the business but I refused to die in it. Pun intended.
I was four years old when I first heard those words, twenty-four the first time I saw him.
Ms. Kawai insisted on white orchids but they were out of season and harder than usual to find. She insisted the coffin be lined with strawberry-pink silk. Insisted I make her daughter look beautiful. That part was easy enough as the girl was an unsettling beauty in death as she was in life but it was in my experience that whenever a person of Ms. Kawai's status insisted on every little detail, they had not so much as given two shits about the dead when they were alive.
It was a ridiculously bright afternoon but the rain of days past caused the ground to become sodden and squishy. I remember looking down at my watch and realizing just how late the service had run. The first to arrive was the hearse, a blonde and a vampire, or so the blonde would call the pale man with the umbrella. Personally, I couldn't blame him; it was much too sunny for my liking as well.
I made the arrangements with the Priest while the rest of the procession trickled in, weepy eye after weepy eye, all here for the girl with auburn hair and amber eyes. You know, when I went about preparing the bodies, I'd pried their eyes open. It was to see if maybe, just maybe, there might be some life left in them. This was not so for Serenity. She had long since been dead.
He was loud and refused to cry. He spoke throughout the priest's sermon and fidgeted like a two year old underneath the pale man's umbrella. He seemed particularly displeased and so did Ms. Kawai but neither said anything. I've seen my fair share of strange behavior at a funeral, but it wasn't until the casket was being lowered that I was surprised.
Ms. Kawai threw herself to the ground near the coffin and began wailing. That in of itself was quite normal, many a person has thrown themselves on the dead in hysterical sorrow, but it was the blonde who stepped in and began laughing in the woman's face.
" Mama, we're all gonna die!" He bellowed at the woman, a maniacal expression on his face, eyes wide open and a smiling jaw the likes of great white. " We all go to Hell!" Everything became uncomfortable.
" You! You let this happen to her!" The woman shrieked, her knees becoming muddy from the sodden ground.
" ME! " The blonde threw his head back in a show of disbelief. " Don't you DARE blame me! YOU were the one who drove her to this! Not me! I took care of her, I answered all her questions, I listened to her, I held her while she cried at night because nobody would hear her screaming! And you, what did you do? You went around making us sound oh so famous!"
" Enough!." She spat at the man. Standing from the ground, her knees and legs covered in wet earth. "You should have been a better son but you're nothing more than a drug addict, what right do you have to cause such a raucous at your sister's funeral? Have you no respect for the dead?"
"Mama, we're both fucking dead, it's when we're still alive you gotta show respect! Something you never did for either of us!"
I'll admit, I jumped when her hand flew across his face.
" You are no son of mine. "
He stood for a moment, eyes tearing, cheek throbbing red. The graveyard was divided into those who stood by and stared and those who walked away, refusing to hear anymore. The man with the umbrella was approaching the blonde, holding out a hand and a look of stern displeasure.
This only made the blonde smile.
" If you could coddle the infection, they can amputate at once."
" Leave!"
" We all carry on eh mother?" He approached her, she stepped back, slipping into the mud but catching herself before she fell. He made no effort to help. " For what you've done they're going to find a place for you."
" Get away from me you, you, you….heathen. "
" And when you go, don't blame me."
He pushed her into the grave. Pushed her straight down onto his dead sister lying in her casket completely oblivious to the familial spat and kicked mud onto the fallen woman's face. I like to think that no one reacted because of shock but there's a quieter voice that tells me that they all knew she deserved it. That for everything she'd done or lack thereof in her children's lives that she deserved it. Of course, I had no opinion in the matter but as a funeral director you learned that drama runs deeper than you'd like to swim in.
By the time Ms. Kawai started screeching to be let out, the blonde was stomping away, feet digger deeper and deeper into the mud as he did. The pale man, having left his umbrella on the ground, followed behind him.