DISCLAIMER: Excerpts from The Picture of Dorian Gray belong to Oscar Wilde, of course.

Chapter Two

His funeral was the next day. Why they waited so damn long, I'm not sure. Isn't it disrespectful or something to leave the dead unburied? Anyway, I didn't want to think of him when he wasn't buried. Wasn't alive.I was still trying to wash the memory of the scene in the hospital from my mind. I don't think I'll evergo backto a hospital… factories of death and pain, that's all they are.

They had wanted me to do the eulogy. I had refused. Truth was, if I had gotten up there… the people would have heard nothing but the sobs of a broken man. That's what I was, without Brian. That's all I could do throughout the entire thing, was just bawl like a sissy girl. He was so close to me, and so horribly far away.

It was a closed casket funeral. I think that's what really got to me; I couldn't understand why. He was so beautiful, and he tried so hard to be beautiful. It was his life. How could they simply close the lid on someone so stunning, even in death? How could they shut him away from the sun when all he'd ever sought was the spotlight? It broke my heart to see him lowered into the ground. I couldn't throw any dirt on him. I wouldn't help to lock him there, in the dark.

I waited for everyone to leave. Waited forever, as people started to drift off to their after parties or whatever the hell is supposed to happen after a funeral. I'd never stuck around long enough to find out. But for Brian, I waited until it was only me, Mandy, and the two men with shovels. They finished their job quickly and neatly and just left; it didn't matter to them who had died.

Then came the waiting contest between me and Mandy. We went on for hours, standing and staring, not speaking, until we were stiff and cold and it had begun to drizzle rain. Bitterly trying to prove who was more eaten away by grief.

In the end, it was me. Mandy turned away from her former husband's grave, raising a hand to her eyes a moment even though I wasn't sure there had really been tears there at that point, then saying to me,

"I'm sorry, Curt."

"Yeah… me too…"

Then I was alone with him, and I sat down beside the fresh dirt, ran my hand against the black marble headstone. Black and silver. Black and silver like the paper on the book. I pulled it out of my jacket pocket, staring a while at the painting pictured on the cover, flipping the pages a bit to see Brian's meticulous handwriting in the margins, the areas where he'd taken a highlighter to certain quotes he enjoyed. No, he couldn't be without this. I set it down by the flowers other mourners had left.

There had been something there, though, that I'd missed. A note stuck between the pages. I hadn't noticed it because of how perfectly sized it had been; perfectly cut to the book's dimensions. My rifling through the pages, though, had turned it loose, and it stuck out, looking just like one of the other pages. Afraid I'd fucked up one of Brian's most prized possessions, I picked up the book again, turned to that page, hoping there was some way to keep it from falling out.

It did come out, though, into my hand, as it had been meant to. Brian had intended for me to find it, no matter how well hidden. Maybe he thought I would have read the book after he died. He'd asked me to so many times. He told me it would help me understand. He was right in one way.

As soon as I figured out the page that had fallen was in Brian's handwriting, I quickly dropped the book, forgot about it. Brian's thoughts were more important. I read on, stumbling sometimes over his ornate lettering, which was of course exquisite but impractical.

-+-

Curt,

By the time you find this, I am sure I will no longer be with you. I do plan on taking my life, darling, but don't fret; it's not because of you. I could never pin you with such a horrendous crime, so much guilt. No, I'm afraid it's all my own affair, really. I should never have let things go this far. I can't bear the shame of what I've done here, made a mockery of life, created something quite disastrous. It must end, Curt; therefore I must go. I will no longer allow Maxwell's will to be done through me.

I am praying you will be able to better handle it. That said, I am afraid I must ask a terrible favor of you. I trust you will do it, out of respect for the dead, if nothing else, and I know you will be horribly offended that I've kept this from you. But it's very important you do not waste much time in opening the attic room of our flat.

I love you, darling Curt. I'm sorry to have said those things to you in the studio. And I'm so sorry it had to come to this.

Love,

Brian

P.S. - chapter XI, page 131

-+-

I read the words. Read them again. Over and over until I'd practically memorized the contents of the note, and still I didn't understand what Brian asked of me. Simply to open the door to our attic? What could he be hiding up there? I'd never gone there, and I'm not sure he had either. After all, there was nothing exciting about an attic when you live in an expensively furnished flat. You didn't need one. I hoped the answer was in the book. At least he'd left some other reference, not that it helped much at that point.

Because when I opened the book, there was only half of one line highlighted on the page he'd listed:

"The garnet cast out demons…"