Seasons

            As Adam stared down at Penelope’s head stone, he did his best to remember her at her happiest times.  That was what funerals were for, right? There was the eulogy and everything. People had things to say, tears to cry, and black suits to wear, but none of that mattered to Adam.  His best friend was fucking gone, what could they possibly do to alleviate his sense of loss?  Nothing, that’s what.  So he blocked them out, and focused on his memories of her.  She wouldn’t have liked the font with which they etched her name into the stone, it was entirely too fancy. You almost couldn’t read it, for all the extra curls and enormous serifs.  She would have wanted a plainer script, maybe a bit jagged to reflect her own lack of uniformity.  She wasn’t here to complain, though, was she?

            But back to trying to find a happy memory of her.  The last few years, she hadn’t really been happy.  At best, she’d been approaching complacency, but never actually happy.  Had she even remembered what that emotion was like, before she died? Adam thought not, and would have pitied her had she still been alive. No, upon reflection, it seemed that death was her favorite season.  He couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t been waiting for this moment for a long time.  Death became her, now.  It had been becoming of her as of late, but he hadn’t wanted to mention it, out of some sense of decency.  They’d never bothered to open the casket. They didn’t need to.  He knew she was where she wanted to be now.  The drugs, the struggle for food, the questioning why life had even bothered pissing on her developing embryo, that was all over.  She had only cared for the summers when the droughts were bad, and all of the plants were dead.  Same could be said of winter. Only when the plants were dead, and the only animals alive were hibernating, was she ok with going outside. 

            Their conversations had been increasingly morose, but he had enjoyed it in his own way.  He had a mind for morbidity, as did she, so it was bound to happen.  There was a reason neither one of them could hang out with people for very long.  People just wound up leaving.  Now, she was gone.

            “Thanks for that.” Whispered Adam.  Satisfied, he turned and left the funeral, tired of the others pretending to give a damn.