THE FUNERAL
An original short story by Cass
C&C are most welcome. Send them to chiaty@singnet.com.sg
Website: Http://web.singnet.com.sg/~chiaty
Author’s notes are located at the end.
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The cab slowly pulled into the innocuous three-storey building painted muted blue. A woman, barely twenty-one, paid the cab fare and stepped out, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun’s glare. Dressed in an office suit, and in heavy make-up, she could have easily passed for someone in her early thirties.
No one came up to welcome her, but then again, she wasn’t really expecting it either. Five long strides and she was standing awkwardly in front of her aunts, sitting in plastic chairs, folding incense papers into ingots. The next table sat three cousins, softly chatting away. Everyone was dressed in the traditional funeral garb - plain white T-shirts and black pants. She plucked at a loose thread of her magenta suit.
"Leng!" a familiar voice called out. The owner of the voice stepped out from behind the yellow curtain. She too, was dressed like the others. The only thing that set this woman apart from the other aunts of the same age, was her hairstyle. The former had highlights in her curly shoulder-length hair, glowing burgundy red in the sunlight. Which contrasted with the plain greyish short hair the others has sported.
She looked up, a smile forming on her face. "Ma." She watched as her mother closed the yellow curtain behind her.
‘Its there,’ Leng thought. ‘Behind the curtain. My grandpa’s casket.’ She shivered despite the oppressing heat.
"Leng, go change into these," her mother, Mi Mi, ordered, holding out a set of clothes.
0= 0= 0= 0= 0=
Leng dawdled in the dingy toilet, staring at her freshly scrubbed face. "You can’t keep hiding in here," she whispered to her glum reflection. "Three days." She tucked in her white collarless shirt and strode out of the toilet. "Three days stuck in a funeral parlour with them."
A few well-wishers had arrived, sitting at a side table. They were apparently her eldest cousin’s colleagues, though Leng would be hard-pressed to remember her cousin’s occupation. Hell, she only remembered his childhood nickname, Boy-Boy. How would she know what he was working as now? Leng walked past them, towards her mother, sitting at the table nearest to the curtained off area. The latter, like the aunts, were folding endless paper ingots. "Go and pay your respects," said one of the aunts, handing over three incense sticks.
Leng nodded, feeling slightly nervous as she pushed the curtain aside and entered. She had never seen a real corpse before, and she would be happy going through her entire life without ever seeing one, thank you very much.
The enclosed area was cool and slightly dark, shaded from the sun’s rays. It was mostly barren, except for an altar table and of course, the open casket containing her deceased grandfather. Morbid curiosity overtook her as she unconsciously took one tiny step and then another forward. ‘Will his eyes be open? Or closed, in a grotesque parody of slumber? Will he look the same as before the cancer had completely invaded his body?’ A frown creased her forehead, as she struggled to remember her grandfather’s features. But her mind drew a complete blank. Puzzled, she moved forward, intent to jumpstart her memory banks.
Suddenly, a black cat dashed out from nowhere and leapt onto the coffin, fur standing up in a fierce warning. "Meow!" High-pitched wails flooded the room, as though there were dozens of those feline creatures. It stood on its haunches, a clear warning for the human to retreat.
"Shoo! Scat!" Her dad shouted, waving a stick threateningly in the air.
The cat screamed once in anger, then scampered off.
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The sun had set long ago, leaving the crescent moon to watch over the ignorant mortals in this crazy planet called Earth. Alone, like this, sitting on the grassy slope, some distance away from the others, their voices mere white noise, Leng could easily imagine that she too was not of this world too. Merely a bystander, or like a tourist visiting a strange land, with a camera in hand.
"There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you." Mi Mi smiled at her only child, handing her supper. "What are you doing here all alone? Come and join us."
"Join who?" retorted Leng, unhappy that her illusion was so easily shattered.
Her mother followed her daughter’s gaze towards the rest of the relatives. Her husband was chatting with his colleagues and friends, proudly showing off his fourteen-year-old niece. Sitting on his lap, the youngest, naughtiest nephew was playing games on her husband’s mobile phone. The child was already squirming around, itching to play pranks. Her mother sighed and acquiesced. "Ok, sit out here if you want."
"Hey, ma," asked Leng suddenly. "How did Grandpa die?"
"Cancer," the woman replied gently. "You know that. We visited him in the hospital, remember?"
Leng shook her head, worriedly. "I don’t… remember. I don’t remember when I last seen him or even what he looks like.
"And what’s even weirder is that I felt a sense of déjà vu. All this is so familiar. This place, what everyone is doing, even the stupid wreaths… I think it happened before. Ma?" She looked up pleadingly at her mother, for answers.
"We’ve never attended a funeral here, before this, dear. You’re just in shock, Leng. Or maybe you’re just too tired. It’ll all come back to you in the morning, ok?" She patted her daughter’s shoulder and then left.
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Leng filled her time with books, plenty of them, piled high on the table she was coming to call as her own. No one bothered her, well except for her mother sometimes and that annoying devil pretending to be her youngest cousin. During one of her chats with her mom, grandmother Chia sat down beside them.
"Grandmother."
Grandma Chia nodded. She was pushing seventy already but hadn’t looked a day over sixty. She was still very hale and hearty, with a full head of black hair, a dye job of course. Her hair was always neatly tied into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. "What did I tell you about Ah Yong?" she asked, her piercing voice impossible to ignore.
"What about my husband?" Mi Mi queried, as though they never had this conversation a dozen times before.
"You should take better care of him," replied the old woman exasperatedly. "Look at him! He smokes so many cigarettes and gambles till late at night! You should make him quit smoking. And spend more time at home as a family."
"Why don’t you tell him?" interrupted Leng. "You’re his mother."
"And you’re his only child. And you’re his wife," she replied, looking at them both. "You have more influence over my eldest son."
"Hah!" Leng snorted, ignoring the warning look her mother was sending her. "We’ve tried. Your son is an adult now. He makes his own decisions. He’ll never listen to us. You’re his mother, you try."
Grandmother Chia’s eyes glowed brightly, her expression triumphant as though she was the cat who had cornered the canary. "Maybe I shall."
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On the last night of the wake, the Taoist priests chanted prayers to send the spirit safely away to hell, on the path to reincarnation. All the relatives were to chant along, holding incense sticks and circle the coffin four times, saying their last farewells.
Leng shuffled along, following the procession led by her dad. Everyone had peered into the open casket as they walked by, even her young cousins. ‘I’ll be a coward if I don’t do the same,’ she reasoned, as she made a wide berth around the coffin for the third time. She followed the procession past the still chanting priests and the well-wishers, then back to the viewing area. The casket was once again in her sights. ‘Just four more steps,’ she thought, her heart beating rapidly.
‘Three.’ Boy-Boy placed his hand on the coffin, saying goodbye.
‘Two.’ Can everyone hear her heartbeat, or feel her nervousness?
‘One.’ Leng quickly glanced at the corpse and froze.
Lying in the coffin was her grandparent. Its body was bone-thin, ravaged by the cancer. Its cheekbones stood out in stark relief against its pale face. And the thick ebony hair she had so admired, was reduced to a few tufts, hidden by a cheap wig. Despite all this, its identity was crystal clear - grandmother Chia.
Leng screamed.
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Leng opened her eyes blearily, glad that the nightmare was over. Grandmother Chia had died two years ago and this was the first time she had dreamed about the former. Light had already filtered into her bedroom and she could hear her father moving about in the living room. Her mother, as usual, left at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to work. Leng closed her eyes, still bone tired, refusing to move even an inch off the soft bed. "Pa, I dreamt about your ma," she called out.
Seconds ticked by, yet her dad didn’t enter through the open door. "Pa!" She shouted but no sound came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Pa! Come here!" Again she was unsuccessful.
‘What is happening!’ she screamed mentally. Panicking, Leng tried to sit up and instead found herself plastered to the mattress. All attempts to roll out of the bed, only resulted in her face pressed down hard into her pillow, her body still uncooperative. Instinctively, she knew she was lying very close to the edge of the bed, just one turn of her body to the left and she would have reached the floor – to safety. She pushed to her left with all her mental willpower, though it was getting harder to breathe. ‘Help me, pa!’ she screamed endlessly; in her mind, her body was thrashing wildly about but in actuality it never moved. Her body was getting heavier and heavier with each passing minute, as though something was pressing on her, forcing her to stay in this cotton prison. Try as she might, she couldn’t dislodge this thing lying completely on top of her, suffocating her slowly but surely.
"Pa!" she screamed helplessly. Her dad was still shuffling about the living room, drinking his first cup of coffee while watching tv, as per his normal morning ritual.
"Relax, Leng." A familiar voice spoke from within her.
Leng gasped as she recognised its owner.
"I’m just going to borrow your body for awhile, Leng," said the old voice. "Remember what you said before? That as Ah Yong’s mother, I’m the only one who can talk some sense to him, that I’m the only one qualified to look after him. I’ve decided to take your advice."
"No!" screamed Leng, as she struggled anew to free herself.
The deceased matriarch continued, ignoring Leng’s outburst. "Let me look after my eldest son for awhile. I’ll take good care of both him and you. I promise…"
"No! Get out! Get out!"
"Sshhh… be a good girl. Listen to your elders."
"Pa! Ma! Help me!" cried Leng.
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Leng slowly rolled out of bed and walked slowly to the bathroom. She grimaced at the sight of her dishevelled reflection. Her pyjamas were old and threadbare. And her hair was in such a mess. Leng combed out the tangles, then tied it into a stiff bun. Smiling at last, she walked into the kitchen.
"Pa? Have you had breakfast? I can fry an egg or two, if you want?"
THE END
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Author’s Notes:
This is the second story in my ‘Dreaming of You’ series.
I really dreamt of this, and my grandmother really had died two years ago. Is this her message from beyond the grave? You decide.
*cue spooky music*