Amaud wasn't even sure what he was doing at Yao's funeral.

Really, what business did he have there? His mind felt the same as always, like this one death had no meaning. After all, they weren't even close friends. Just acquaintances. From a business convention. Then Arthur had brought up over tea, ever so casually, that Yao was dead.

Car accident, apparently.

(Technically, it was a truck, which was what tore Amaud apart.)

Amaud's relationship with Yao had been quite a strange one. Sometimes Amaud felt like he would do better in business without Yao's overbearing presence, and yet he also felt like Yao helped him a lot. Somehow, it reminded Amaud of his mother. His mother who had croaked when he was six.

(It was a truck as well, just for the record.)

So there he was in the cold autumn breeze, listening to Mei and Yong Soo bawling their hearts out while Kiku stood by, looking numb to the world. Arthur squeezed out a few crocodile tears, just for Li Xiang's sake. Alfred, on the other hand, had true tears, as true as his honest soul. Francis looked despondent, and already had a glass of wine in his hands.

Thank goodness Francis wasn't as bad a drunk as Arthur.

As fate would have it, the sun was shining, just so gently. Wasn't it supposed to rain when people died? That's what things looked like in the movies. Cold, pouring rain. Sobbing that somehow sounded good, not like those ugly wails wretched from the heartbroken. What had it been like at Amaud's mother's funeral? He'd forgotten, losing it to the ocean of time. All he remembered was that overwhelming sense of emptiness.

What did he feel right now? Someone had died. Wasn't he supposed to be sad?

Tears were hard to squeeze out. Amaud didn't try to force them. He didn't want to be like Arthur. Meaningless tears, meaningless life.

Mumbling some apologies to the siblings of the deceased, he left the general area funeral. It was suffocating him. Foolish, stupid world. Crocodile tears and sunshine. Fate guided him, tugging his feet like he was but a puppet, to a garden with a pond. And peonies. Peonies, as delicate as this silly world.

"Yao-yao always loved peonies," Came a man's voice, rough and accented, cutting through Amaud's thoughts like an icebreaker.

It voiced exactly what Amaud was thinking (expect, in his thoughts, Yao's name was only repeated once).

"Ivan," The man greeted brusquely, "I'm one of the few who came because they actually care."

"Who is to say I don't?" Amaud asked, while knowing that he didn't care, didn't care that someone died.

Nine people die every five seconds anyways. And yet the world keeps right on going, trodding over them like you would a fallen leaf, unless they're someone important. Then maybe more like a fallen squirrel.

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "You say, comrade."

"Amaud. My name is Amaud."

"Whatever you say, comrade."

And so they sat in silence, as the sun smiled down upon them. The breeze whispered secrets and the fiery leaves danced at their own funeral.

"Nine people die every five seconds," Amaud said flatly, without thinking, words torn out of his mouth by Fate's sadistic hands.

"Ah, but every five seconds, 21 babies are born," Ivan said, smiling like a ghost would.

"Yes, but 10 of those are born into poverty. They will never know plenty, only struggle. What kind of life is that?"

"Better than not living at all," Ivan said softly, "Yao used to say that, whenever the new hirees would come to complain to him of their struggles."

"Typical of him. However empty this world is."

"Da, comrade. But you know, he also said that we create our own meaning."

Silence once again overtook them. Fate's hand grew tired of pulling words from their mouths, and they had nothing left to say. The peonies would die soon, but as Yao so wisely said, at least they got a chance to live, and create meaning with their beauty.

Perhaps, Amaud decided, he too could create his own meaning.

4/22/2017

Okay, so this story erupted out of... prompts on the internet. And it's super depressing, because what's life without depressing stuff?

Amaud is Cameroon (I asked my dad for two random countries, and he gave me Russia and Cameroon). My sucksy summary is sucksy.

About the theme of this story, I've always sort of questioned the meaning of life (what's the point? We're all going to die anyways). What better way to express my feelings than to write a story about it? I'm still kinda shakey on the meaning of life, but maybe there is none... maybe the only reason to live is our own selfish human desires...