Gone to Ground

The invitation was unexpected and unwanted. Trent did not know the deceased. Thought he might know of him. Thousands of touch points with others. Few meant anything to him. But he knew they could mean something to people who were built differently to him. He was at least aware of that.

A refusal to attend would have been a swift conclusion to the affair. He could have ignored the invitation altogether but that would not do. Sometimes news of such behaviour leaked and that leakage could cause a bothersome mess. 

Trent examined the invitation in order to ascertain the details required to send a polite apology for non-attendance. The card was textured. Vellum he thought. He ran a finger over the type. Each letter was raised and the feel of it upon his fingertip was pleasing. This sensuous moment tipped the balance and he resolved to attend the funeral after all, overlooking the fickle basis that had led him to do so. The invitation spoke of wealth and this made the effort worthwhile. Networking opened doors and presented opportunities. This was Trent’s cheat code. Find the right person and mine them of their use.

As the date of the send-off approached Trent checked that he had the appropriate attire. The black tie took some locating. Seldom used it seemed to make its way further and further into the recesses of his wardrobe. The black suit and white shirt were far more conspicuous, as were the shoes he kept for best. These would eventually become his dailies. He would replace them with a shiny new pair for those occasions where he wanted to look particularly good. Shoes were important. He’d had this drilled into him during his time in the cadets and later, as he entered his profession, a senior partner had told him that you could tell a lot about someone from the state of their shoes. This he doubted, barring the exceptions of those who sported cheap or dirty footwear. Those people were losers and lacked class. Unexceptional exceptions.

Despite his wardrobe research, Trent did not bother looking up the deceased. He was not interested. Saw little use in doing so. The funeral was a mere diversion for him and he did not intend to waste any time beyond the event itself. In a way, he was looking forward to it. There was something liberating in not knowing the guest of honour. He would be free to read the room and hone his skills in a different environment. The change would be as good as a rest. He would show his face at the wake and take it from there. Fancied that he would spend the best part of an hour enjoying a free lunch and flitting here and there to ascertain the usefulness of the attendees.

He considered the food on offer to be lunch as he expected there would be a buffet and buffets could only be lunch as far as he was concerned. The funeral itself was relatively late in the day, which he found intriguing. The sun would be down and out for some while prior to the interment. He’d never witnessed a graveside ceremony in the dark hours. He wondered whether there would be lighting and how that would look. Smiling he considered the December date and half wished it was approaching the end of October. That would add to the theatre of the final goodbye. Perhaps, he thought, he should buy a red lined cloak to suit the occasion.

On the day of the funeral, he found that he was nervous but had no notion as to why that would be the case. He had no skin in the game and certainly had no problem sitting in the midst of strangers. His growing anxiety prodded and pulled at him and he found himself thinking about the man who would go into the ground later that day. An inevitable conclusion that was somehow irking him right now.

Trent could not quite remember the man’s name and when he looked around for the invitation it was nowhere to be seen. The missing card annoyed him. He was not one for misplacing items. Everything in its right place. The more he worried away at this, the more it eluded him. As did the connection he might have with the dead man.

This state of affairs strengthened Trent’s resolve. He had always had a stubborn streak and now he was absolutely set to attend a funeral that had only ever been an entertaining possibility. There now existed a certainty born of something like anger. A petty anger prompted by a small offence the world had caused Trent.

During the morning Trent worked remotely. He felt his remoteness as he sat in the room he had made into his office. Listless, he stared at his screen. The symbols that he was adept at analysing floated before him in a dissociated state. Ancient runes that he was incapable of deciphering. The more he tried to focus, the less present he became. The entire screen was moving now. Pulsing like a disembodied heart. He ran from the room and fell to his knees in the bathroom. Bellowing his meagre breakfast into the toilet bowl. A prayer of release that did little to cleanse him of a growing foreboding.

Perhaps the late afternoon trip was what he needed. A strange reset. There had been a blind intensity to his life of late. Come to think of it, there had always been an intensity to the way Trent lived. A race to be run. Always a race to be run. Leaving behind the unsatisfactory in the pursuit of fleeting fulfilments that were all sugar and no substance. 

Was the pace building? Had he been frantic in his pursuit of more? Right now, he had no notion of the motion that had been his life for so long. He needed a pause. To get off the train and stretch his legs. If only to stroll along the platform before the next train pulled in. A different carriage may suit him far better. A differing means to the same end.

He bathed and as he lay there in the water he could not remember the last time he had used this bath. Showers were his thing. The flow of water suited him far better. The still waters around him were supposed to aid relaxation. Attending to this goal pushed it further away and he did not have it within him to draw it near again. And so he scrubbed his body from toe to head. Submerging his soapy face in temporary claustrophobia. Emerging with a sense of uncleanliness that pushed him from bath and bathroom with the haste of escape.

The mirror was accusatory as he dressed. He knew he looked good in his suit but this knowledge was redundant as far as his image was concerned. Discomfort was the accessory he wore as he left his bedroom and trekked through his house.

In the safe cocoon of his car there was no respite from a day of unease. He tried to convince himself that the prospect of the funeral itself was wreaking havoc with any semblance of calm. He could not remember the last time he sat with calm and broke bread. Peace was a stranger he had no interest in. Peace was a punishment for the dead. Until then there was only the enlivening storm.

The car guided him to his destination and he had precious little to do with the journey. When he arrived outside the church he did nothing with the fact that his was the only car in the car park. He was too busy with a memory that had come unbidden to him. With the engine still running and providing a soundtrack to his recollections he watched the footage of an impossibly small and timid version of himself. Tasted the emotions that the child had experienced. The bile of fear and threat of a treacherous bladder intent on loosing itself at the worst possible moment. A bizarre relaxation of the functions that shame. Letting go in the worst possible way. He wanted to see what it was that inspired the terror but that was denied him. There was only the feeling of being so utterly lost. Cast out into a blaze of cruelty that undoes. He felt the demons circling and relived a religious experience that lead to his wanton atheism. Yet more anger bottled up and distilled to a fine vintage.

Stepping out of the car was another escape. Numbed by a lost and betrayed child’s memory he did not bother to lock his car. Would not recall whether he’d taken the keys from the ignition were anyone to ask this of him.

Needing to get this over with. Stepping through the sludge of treacle poured along his path either as warning or inducement. Meaning ignored as with so many signs and lessons on the path of life. 

Pain now silent as though in respect for the dead. The roars and screams of a pain that always knew better but never had the chance to speak at all the meetings that were held in its honour. The business of life being pain. Pain the business of life. An unsuccessful partnership only ever dissolved in places such as this.

As the great oak doors to the church presented themselves to Trent, the resonance with his childhood memory reached a crescendo. His insides raged and boiled within him and he heard the violent ocean of panic crashing in his ears. 

He was late. 

He was always late.

Denied access to where he must have belonged.

A victim of bad timing. 

He wanted to cry, but could not.

Selfish tears for himself and the little boy who did nothing wrong. He didn’t deserve this. He never got what he deserved.

Turning to his right was a movement that occurred without his input. He was not entirely late. There they were all gathered. Around the yawning graveside. Heads bowed. Solemnly peering down into the final resting place of the deceased. 

Compelled to join their ranks, Trent drew near. Addressing an ancient need not to stand outside the herd. Hiding within the crowd. Safety in numbers. Keeping secrets that cannot be read between the lines.

The only space afforded him was at the foot of the grave. The place reserved for the celebrant who was conspicuous in his absence. This a place of eternal absence. A disregarded warning to the living.

Trent took his place at the head of the table as everyone said wordless grace. Looked up at his opposite number and saw himself recorded with a tragic finality. Accusatory image made stone. In a trance he walked around to the gravestone and ran his finger along it. The sensation as pleasing as the invitation had been. The lettering, wounds inflicted upon the rock. A hollowing that diminished everything. Reduced a life to a name on the precipice of obscurity. Seldom uttered. Soon forgot. 

As Trent let go of the stone that presided over a dark, hungry hole that could not be denied he felt eyes upon him. The gathering raising their heads as one. Turning towards the guest of honour. 

The gathered and grateful dead welcoming Trent at last. Finally, he had found a place where he belonged. These the ghosts of his past. Lessons long unlearned. Raising their arms in a cruel embrace of betrayal. The arms continuing upwards until they clawed the air. Faces contorted in silent screams of anguish. 

The all-consuming silence of death. A noiseless warning to the living that is always lost in the cacophony of lies and ignorance. A mess of complexity that smothers the simplicity of life. Potential lost as it is born into a world unfit for the innocent. 

Trent saw it all before him in the final moment afforded to him. Not the incoherence of his existence flashing stuttering images of an angry existence, but the beautiful sense of the life that had always been laid out before him. He witnessed the straight path of his destiny and wondered at the foolishness that had him drunk with nonsensical rage, staggering and meandering further and further away from that which was always meant.

And then it was over. Arms lowering. Fingers pointing towards the final destination of us all. The only certainty in life. Death and his apprentices showing the way. Trent descending into a darkness without end. A final thought escaping him and drifting up into the cold and damp night air; what a waste.