Silverstein Passes on Life's High

Playing a writing game with the cousins, prompt was to write story/poem base don the question: “Why are you crying?”. Written about Shel Silverstein's poem "The Perfect High".

Funerals are never much fun, but this one was turning out to be especially disheartening, really took the cake.

The boy’s mum had been weeping nosily since she had arrived (“Such a sweet, sweet boy! Just yesterday he was my little baby!”), and although externally I gave her my heartfelt condolences, in the confines of my own mind I really wanted to tell her to shove it. Maybe that wasn’t very Christian of me… Maybe I should go to church this Sunday… God, but our preacher just rambles on for hours and never seems to say anything. Also, I have that thing with Jill. For goodness sake I didn’t even really know the guy!

Maybe long-windedness is a universal trait of preacher’s, because the guy here had to have been going at it for a good half hour now and from his forlorn expression, he was just getting started.

Glancing around, I noticed that none of the folks here seemed all that thrilled, or, well, devastated, to be spending their Thursday afternoon with some dead guy either. I heard he had been into all sorts of drugs. Maybe he’d been killed by some mob boss... Naw, overdose more likely. I looked to see if there was anyone around me who I could pump for juicy information. My prospects looked grim. Almost everyone had their phones held surreptitiously beneath layers of appropriately dreary black clothing they had dredged from the back of their closet this morning. Well, at least I got out of work.

As my gaze wandered to the window, I noticed the light overcast of this morning had thickened to a heavy grey smog and wondered idly if it would rain. Wouldn’t that just make my day. And raining on a funeral? How cliché. I wondered if maybe I could skip out when everyone headed over to the burial grounds. 4:17. Maybe I’d have time to catch a beer with Chris at Charlie’s. If only this guy would hurry it up.

Thank the lord, prayers do get answered. The minister was just stepping down from the podium. I wondered if it would be inappropriate to clap… I straightened up and put on my jacket, itching to get out of here. The crowd was stirring, obviously feeling the same way. I heard a couple sighs of relief, and one guy was even out-right grinning, that is until he turned it into a suitable grimace. I snidely wondered if it was meant for the deceased or us who had to suffer through the aforementioned’s funeral.

“Alrighty, lets get going now…” I mutter to myself, jangling my leg impatiently.

What? No! Another guy was standing up now. It can’t be legal to keep people cooped up this long! I’ll never make it to see Chris now, and I just know Sandy’ll jump right in on that opportunity.

Heaving a sigh, I settle back into the rigid confines of my chair, resigned to a long, torturous afternoon.

This new guy was short, stocky and bald as a coot on the top of his shiny head, but with a thick wiry brown beard emerging from his lower face which now, in all honesty, was mostly grey. His heavy eyebrows completed the look and I didn’t know whether to be frightened or to laugh out loud.

Without any preface, he said, “There once was a boy named Gimme-Some-Roy... He was nothin' like me or you, 'cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.” Well, let’s get right down to it then, I thought to myself. No beating ‘round the bush. I shot a quick glance at the boy’s mother who was momentarily shocked out of her tears, and conveniently forgot, in my judgmental haze, that my recent thoughts hadn’t been much kinder.

After a few more lines, I decided this dude was either reading a poem, or he had a really weird way of talking…

And a creepy fixation with rhyming.

Well, to cut to the chase, a solid two minutes later I was straight up bawling.

Not only had this guy taken us out of the dull funeral home (reason enough to shed tears of gratitude) he had flown us to Nepal no less.

In the span of two minutes, three max, this bald guy had not only breathed life into the sad, degenerate boy who was dead long before he had died, but his poem made me question life, the universe, and (frankly) everything.

As the room took a collective breathe in the heavy, but not stifling, silence which followed that last resounding phrase, it seemed as though we had been released from a spell.

With a few final words from the minister, we were dismissed, but my prior urgency had left me and I now felt slightly lost.

Shaking myself out of my stupor, and clapping my hands together to gain momentum, I stood, collected my few possessions, and on quaking (well, alright, metaphorically quaking) legs, turned to exit the funeral home.

I gave a last glance to the limp flowers which adorned the coffin and cradled a cheap blown up image of a twenty-somethin’ boy glowering at the camera from a dark hoodie, then turned, gathered my courage, and left.