Waking in the Morning

Waking in the Morning

It’s a Monday. It seems wrong to hold a wake on a Monday. Just yesterday people were barbecuing, or jogging, or doing whatever it is jolly people do on Sundays. Go fishing I suppose. Maybe the pious patroned a church, while the humanitarians parched the pubs. A wake on a Monday is just, it’s just… depraved.

I forget who died. I think it was a cousin, some once or twice removed. Car accident or anaphylaxis I think. Tragic, I’ve been told, he was really going to be something someday, or so they say. Hit by a bicycle? … maybe; that sounds familiar.

Why do funerals always have to run so long, and start so early? I didn’t even have a chance to eat breakfast this morning. I mean really, he wouldn’t have been any less dead if we’d started the service at 10:30 instead of 9:00. I can’t imagine he’d have minded. I’m practically starved now.

No one will notice if I slip into the kitchen and raid the cupboards, they’re all doing that standing, talking, crying, hugging, arm-stroking part. I’ll set a pot of coffee on the stove and fill the kettle so that if anyone comes in and asks I’ll say, “I thought I’d help out a little and prepare a spot of tea. It’s so tragic after-all. Truly awful.”

The kitchen is obnoxiously cheery. Paisley oven-mitts folded over the stove handle with lavender and mint embroidery. Miniature salt and pepper figurines perched on every available bit of shelf in atrociously adorable poses, legs flicked out behind, chins in hands, and cheeks pecked with kisses. Sunlight floating in warmly through the lace curtains above the sink. The room is practically drowning in a warm flood of buttery light. This is a kitchen for summer mornings and soft-boiled eggs.

But for a wake it’ll do too. I guess homely kitchens don’t die too when sons get hit by bicycles.

“Oh pet, what’re you doing in here?”

“I thought I’d help out a little and prepare a spot of tea. It’s so tragic after-all. Truly awful.” Fantastic. Phenomenal! Really, some of my best work.

“What a lovely thought, pet,” God I hate the way old ladies coo, pursing their putridly paint-caked lips,

sucking their cheeks to make that awful smacking saliva sound; so wet, “Such a fine lad. Greg was a fine lad

like yourself, always looking out for others…” She’s got that shoulder blade cinching old lady sigh too.

Greg. Mmhh… no it doesn’t sit right. Thank Christ she’s gone though. Flapping her arms about like a raunchy goose in a misty glen. You have to watch out for the bills, they like to pucker up and bite your cheeks off if you don’t run for your life.

Ah here it is, the biscuit drawer.

Sssssccccrreeeeee! – Christ all Mary and Joseph! That blasted kettle. Poor George’s lucky he didn’t die of a heart attack from that devilish thing.

Oh, Super Wines. Nice. How does a person die in a bicycle accident? Was he on the bicycle? I should really start wearing a helmet when walking. Mhmm, yes. Yes, that would do quite nicely. No, but then my hair would always look like a Jack Russel mutt who couldn’t leave a shag carpet unmolested.

“Oh! Hello there, love. Would you look at that, you’ve already put the kettle on. Naww such a lovely boy. So few good boys left, and now that Greg’s gone.”

Gosh she looks so unattractive when she pinches her face like that. Wrinkles set in even deeper, the skin’s practically folding onto itself like a rumpled sheet. A cranberry stained and unsuccessfully washed sheet, so splotchy. Mhmm no, definitively not attractive. “Yes, so tragic. Truly awful.”

“Oh my Greg, tttchaa … he was really going to be something. Did you know he was in seminary school?

Tches, tches, the Bishop dioceses, he always said that Greg was going to do such wonderf–”

What does a person learn in seminary school? Seems like someone let book club get a little out of hand. Can’t teach faith or it’s not really faith is it? Christ I should write that down, that sounded pretty good. What was it I wanted to write down before? Something something, we were standing and doing the singing part.

“– I always knew my boy would go into the Lord’s work. Ever since he was just a babe tumbling around he would do the sweetest things tttaahh. He’d waddle around the garden and pick me daises from the lawn and grab fistfuls of my petunias hahaha, scrunch them in his tiny fists and come stumbling back to me, ‘ma ma, ma ma,’ couldn’t even say mama properly and already such a good boy. Such a good boy. His father, he too–”

No not the singing part. It must have been during communion, bread, wine … did I need to buy bread or wine? I should really make Bolognese for tea again. No no, it can’t have been the wine, I only finished half the bottle last night. And please when was the last time I bought bread. Must have been

“–sure he was tough on him, but chyou know he done the best he could. He tried with that boy. Martin just, after the war, he couldn’t, he wasn’t the same. Oh, love you’ve been such a pet listening to an old woman croak, such a good boy. Best be heading back out there now, Cousin Stuart has the diabetes and he won’t stop his bickering till he has his biscuits.”

“mhm Aye, tches. Lovely home. Imma keep the kettle going for you here.”

“Such a lovely boy.” Old lady heels clipping off make such an odd sound, especially on these floors.

The linoleum’s cracked. Looks almost like a left-handed giant ran a pencil across bleached newspaper. And there’s a fly over there, sitting on the basket of a pocket-sized puppy pepper shaker in dungarees. Life would be so much easier as a fly. Minus the swatting and general filth, obviously. No real worries, no need to go to senseless funerals for buggers who can’t even watch out for bicycles. I think I’d enjoy life as a fly. Gorge myself on fruits and biscuit crumbs. Levitate, walk on walls, crawl along the windows and wonder at the finite world that exists only here and there. A pleasant little life.

Now, for Christ’s sake what was it I needed to write down?

Odd that kettle lights turn red when they’re on. Red, hot. Red, go. Red, dangerous. Life’s red. Bloody, dangerous, going, going, going … then when the red blood stops bubbling, we stop. Hit by bicycles.

Flicked kettles, that’s what we are.