story: 'Good Mourning'

(this was originally written for my bfh culminating project,

but i like it, so here it is)

The boom of far off thunder that still shakes the cages of the mourners' bodies is the bass for this song named Mourning. The deep roar is harmonized by rain that comes down in separate drops, like a million little worlds, or a big one broken into pieces; rain the falling of a quiet snare. And above all else, the plucking of heartstrings enunciated by silent tears that mixes with the million worldlettes: the melody of melancholy. It would be appropriate to have tall men with black hats and small women with black skirts, satin and silk lightly brushing the muddied floor, adding to the Mourning, but in this gloom of an afternoon, the umbrellas are red and yellow and aqua, vigilantly fighting the sky and adding a sun to the fray of black clothes with black faces.

A voice begins and the hush, hush descends on the crowd, blank faces downcast black and black clothes wet. A girl has died today; a girl has died a week ago, today. She was far too young; she had an entire life to live. God has a reason or maybe it wasn't reason. Maybe it was an accident; I'm sure it was. Murmurs that one hums are exact replicas of the murmurs beside it, all as one humming the same, blank faces, black shoes, umbrellas coloured for the wrong day. 

She was a good girl, she was my beautiful daughter, she listened to me and looked me in the eyes, she kissed me goodnight, she said sorry. She rebuked the singing crowd, she wrote poems and stories, she got an A in every course; she was a good girl. Voices murmur the same humming tune, the same Mourning. On different faces the same sigh, the same: she was too young. And as the distant thunder ended its last boom, boom of the hour, the rain began to lighten so that you could count the colours in each drop; the umbrellas needed not to fight the sky anymore. The song was done as was the day, but on each person's tongue, oh, oh, this girl was too young.