Death is Only the Beginning
"So people come into our lives and quickly go.
Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our
hearts and we are never, ever the same."
It was unbelievable. Like a bad dream she waited to wake up from.
But this was no dream her best friend was dead. About three-dozen people stood
around the grave. Jack Crawford, whom had been her mentor, stood quietly,
unmoving, wrestling his grief on his own. Just the way Clarise had described
him.
Agent Mapp,
Clarise's old roommate, stood next to him, her body racking with sobs, her head
bent, too proud to show tears. She too, was just as Clarise had described her.
Gathered around the coffin were police officers, out of their uniform, crying,
mourning one of their own.
There was no
family there, as she had no living family. At least she was with her family
now. There were no friends, because she had never allowed anyone to get that
close, save a precious few, like Miss Mapp and herself.
Alissa
Brossard stepped forward to place a white rose on Clarise Starling's coffin.
Clarise had been so young, barely 32. It was so terrible. After being Clarise's
best friend for almost ten years, Alissa hadn't a clue how she would move on
from this.
The coffin
was slowly lowered into the ground, many flowers splashed on top, along with
the dirt, each burring her in it's own way. A few more songs, some tears, and
it would all be over. But after the end of something, there is always a
beginning, yet Alissa saw no beginning. There was no light at the end of this
dark tunnel.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Death is not the greatest loss in life.
The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."
-Norman Cousins
A man in a dark suit holding flowers
stood in front of a coffin bearing the name Mary Medina. He leaned down and
placed the flowers on the grave. A funeral was in progress not 20 yards away.
Clarise starling's funeral. This dark shadow's eyes linger among it's
gathering. He can't get any closer without putting himself in danger.
Clarise, his
protégée, was being lowered into the ground. He observed his flowers on the
stranger's grave, he would not be able to approach Clarise's coffin for some
time. They would be watching for him, he new.
Among the
crowd was his old rival, Jack Crawford, the man who he battled all his life. He
had stolen Crawford's protégée, William Gram, by tearing off his face. And now,
Crawford had stolen his. Crawford had put his Starling in a place of danger,
and as far as he was concerned, Jack Crawford was indirectly responsible for
her death.
Also there was Miss Mapp. He chuckled. If she
were to see him now, even paying homage to Clarise, she would arrest him
immediately. She had that same sense of right and wrong as his little Starling,
and he was in her Wrong category. How wonderful life must be for the people who
can simply separate right and wrong into two neat little piles with no
exceptions.
A few FBI
officers stood around, Paul Kreddler had the nerve t make an appearance. There was only one other woman there. A
blond woman, standing across from Jack Crawford, head bent, face concealed from
view. She, he could tell, was grieving the most. Not because she cried the
most, or sobbed hysterically, but because he could taste her pain, even at this
distance. The scene earned a place in his memory palace.
Dr. Lecter
turned away from the affair, no longer interested in the stranger's grave
before him, and no longer able to watch Clarise being returned to the earth.
The woman's pain was sweet, and he drank it in, an exotic mixture with his own.
He slowly made his way from the old cemetery in West Virginia,
where his little Starling would finally find peace from the lambs.
"If
you do not understand my words, you will not understand my silence"
-Unknown
