The Burial Celebration

Six empty caskets. Rusted bleachers and rusted chairs on brown grass. White chrysanthemums on a wooden table. Behind the stage, rain pounded the still waters of the river.

Malcolm watched from the window. Eyes gray like the river. Hands shaking like a man facing the gallows. He punched a hole through the window. Shards of glass sprinkled into his fist.

He climbed into bed. Her foot traveled over to his and she mumbled and he mumbled back.

 “We have to decide tomorrow,” Malcolm said.

“Don’t say it like that. It’s a good thing. One of our boys will be saved.” Emma said.

“It’s murder,” Malcolm said.

“I know what happened with your brother when you were little, but I can’t keep having this discussion,” Emma said. 

She fell asleep. He did not. The rain pounded the river.

In the days and weeks before the Burial Celebration, Malcolm and Emma argued. They argued quietly when Malcolm got home from the factory, the smoke and coal still covering his soft eyes. And they argued before Emma put the boys to bed. And they argued while the boys slept and the moon reflected in Malcolm and Emma’s bedroom window and their stomachs churned and they shivered beneath thin bed covers.

The rain stopped in the morning. The bleachers were soaked. The chairs were soaked. The empty caskets were soaked. The flowers, sitting atop the wooden table, radiated life to the dead grass.

“I think we should save Adam,” Emma said, standing near her splintered bureau near the splintered door.

Malcolm looked away from Emma.

“This would mean a lot to him. Grades are good, he’s popular with the other kids in middle school, he’s read more on climate change than anyone, he understands why we do this even if you don’t,” Emma said.

“I wish I had more time with him,” Malcolm said, picking shards of glass off the floor.

“Take him hunting,” Emma said.

“Nothing left to hunt,” Malcolm said.

“You don’t need to actually hunt,” Emma said.

Adam and Samuel looked at each other. Sharing a look that only brothers share. A look that Malcolm recognized when he walked into the boys room and heard them whispering.

“You’ll be saved Adam,” Malcolm said. On a full stomach he would have puked, but instead his chin quivered and he felt like a parent unable to protect his child.

Samuel hugged Adam. “You were a great big brother,” Samuel said.

In Samuel’s eyes, Malcolm saw no pain or hurt or sadness. Only excitement. And Malcolm remembered his own brother. A few inches taller, strong enough to throw the heaviest rocks in the river, big enough to protect Malcolm when the other kids teased him for not being able to swim.

“What do you say we go hunting Adam?” Malcolm said.

Away from the river and their small house and their small town, Malcolm and Adam walked with shotguns pointed towards the black ground.

“Things used to grow in the ground before the firestorms,” Malcolm said.

“That’s what my teacher told me,” Adam said.

It’d been three hours with no sign of living animals, but time had gone by fast for Malcolm. He’d counted the blond hairs on his sons head and wondered what Adam would’ve looked like ten years from now. Twenty years from now. Thirty years from now.

“Why are you sad?” Adam said.

“Aim down your sights if you see anything,” Malcolm said.

But they didn’t see anything. And for the next hour they didn’t talk. And Malcolm thought about all the conversations he and Adam would never have, all the advice he’d never give, the lucky girl or boy Adam would never meet. And the longer he thought, the faster time went. His thoughts sucking up time like a straw. 

“I want to help when I leave this earth,” Adam said.

“You could have done a lot of things here first,” Malcolm said.

“You know what the river needs Dad,” Adam said. “Us kids who are saved keep the water clean so that everyone else can drink it. The textbook says without the river we’d all die.”

“Your reading too much from those damn textbooks,” Malcolm said.

They crossed through an area that used to be miles of forest. And they walked through a rocky dune that used to be a long river. And they hiked up an area that used to be a state park. A squirrel sprinted into view and Adam squeezed the trigger.

 “I hope I go quickly,” Adam said.

“That’s what the pills are for. A day or two in the casket and it’ll be over,” Malcolm said.

“Will you be there Dad?”

“Mom and I will both be there.”

“But you’ll be there right?”

“I’ll be there.”

The crowd gathered near the river to watch the fireworks on the eve of The Burial Celebration. Exploding comets and exploding chrysanthemums and exploding crowns lit the sky. Mothers with large smiles embraced their children and young boys and girls sat atop their Father’s shoulders.

Emma sat alone in the study, hunched over a notepad with a candle, the wax falling and hardening. She pressed into the notepad, dulling the pencil before erasing her notes and starting again.

“Haven’t decided what you’re going to say?” Malcolm said.

“It’ll be the last words I say to him before he leaves us.”

“He’ll be in too much pain to understand.”

“I want him to hear my voice as he passes.”

“All the mothers will be screaming at the edge of the river.”

“That’s what gives the river life.”

 A breeze glided along the river and the air smelled fresh through the broken window. Emma crawled into bed, hugging the scribbled notes to her chest like a child clutching a teddy bear.

 Malcolm watched the crowd walk home after the fireworks. A parade of smiles and joyful voices. Adults laughing. Children dancing.

Trailing behind the crowd, a woman in a black shirt bent down and zipped up her little boy's gray coat. The little boy hugged her and she picked him up and carried him, her arms enveloping the boy like a shield.

The smell of the river and the peaceful gust of the winds rocked Malcolm into a sweat drenched sleep. The cries of his Mother and the cries of his brother echoed from the darkest corners of the room.

Malcolm woke to Adam laying next to him. The boy’s head lying against his arm. The boy’s chest rising and falling. Malcolm looked at Adam and Adam looked back and tried not to cry.

“I don’t want to go anymore,” Adam said.

Malcolm leaned forwarded and whispered.

He took Adam by the hand and made him what used to be referred to as an English breakfast. Now, nothing more than plant based mush in small jars, designed to taste like eggs, bacon, sausages, and mushrooms.

Malcolm, Emma, and Adam walked along the narrow gravel path leading to the river. With them, the other children and their families. The children walked in front of the parents, and the parents followed. On either side of the gravel path were ropes and barricades and Officials with automatic rifles. Behind the ropes and the barricades, the growing crowd chanted. “Remember us,” they said, as they walked with the children towards the river.

The parents filed in, taking seats on wet bleachers. Malcolm and Emma sat in the back row which provided a perfect view of Adam, who looked calm, like he was getting ready for the first day of school.

The Officials wore black suits and black shirts and black boots. They stood on a small stage that sunk in the wet sand while they read the names of the six children. They spoke of the life-giving elements of the river. They spoke of the sacrifices of the children. They spoke of the promises of the next life. Before climbing off the stage, one Official turned towards the children and reminded them to take the pills.

A large man wearing a silver necklace with a triangle followed the Officials like an obedient dog. He carried an aluminum bat and an ambivalent look across his face.

The Officials walked over to the children, the first of whom was the seventh-grade class president who had written an essay on why she wanted to be saved. She smiled wide at the Officials, thanked them for her time on earth, and swallowed the pills. Without looking at her parents, she climbed into the casket and pulled the lid over her body. The Officials placed a Chrysanthemum on the casket and pushed the casket out towards the river. 

They repeated the process. A young boy who wanted to be a track star, a girl who loved astronomy, a girl who taught herself algebra.

Pills. Casket. Chrysanthemum. River.

Two boys remained. Standing next to Adam, a little boy in a zipped-up gray coat. When the Officials offered him the pills, the boy put his hands over his mouth.

“Take them,” the Official said.

The boy placed his hands on his hips and looked away.

“He never learned to swallow pills,” a woman in a black shirt from the bleachers said. “Take the pills Ron. Take them for Mommy. Put them in your mouth and swallow.”

The Official sighed, bent down, and pointed towards the boys mouth. But the boy refused again. The parents in the bleachers remained silent. The woman pleaded. Malcolm looked away.

The aluminum bat came down on the boy's head. The Official tossed the boy’s body in the casket and pushed the casket into the river, throwing the Chrysanthemum on the dead grass. The woman fell to the ground. No one in the crowd moved.

Emma grabbed Malcom’s hand as the Official walked over to Adam. She squeezed when Adam took the pills and she squeezed harder when he climbed into the casket, replaced the lid, and floated away.

The bleachers emptied and the Officials folded up the tables and the crowds returned home and the town went silent. Silent until the Mothers approached the river, dropped to their knees, and prayed in a chorus of motherly love and motherly grief.

The drowned-out voices of the boys and girls called out from the caskets. Cries of agony and cries of pain and cries of loneliness. Cries answered by praying mothers on the shore of the river.

“Your feeding the river,” one Mother said. “Scream for the life of the river,” another Mother said. “Your screams bring freedom.”

But Emma talked gently, like her Mother had talked to her when she crawled into her bed after a nightmare. “Don’t fight the pain,” she said. “It will all be over soon.” But no response ever came from Adam’s casket.

Malcolm lied on top of the sheets with his boots hanging over the edge of the bed. Emma kissed him and crept into the boys room and crawled into bed with Samuel.

In darkness, with Emma and Samuel asleep, Malcolm traveled the gravel path to the river. He jumped in, unable to see the caskets in the dark fog rising over the river, but trusting that the waters would take him to his son.

Malcolm felt his arms getting heavy and his legs getting heavy and his lungs burning as he swam. He thought of his brother, who had refused to take the pills, and he thought of his Mother, pleading with the officials, and the blood-stained bat raised in the air. And he kicked harder in the cold water, wondering how much farther he could swim. Remembering the joy when his brother had finally taught him to swim.

He kicked hard in the cold water.

Away from the town and far from the shore, he found the six caskets. Adam had followed instructions and knocked the chrysanthemum into the water.

Malcolm grabbed the handle and kicked his legs and all night the casket inched closer to banks of the river. And when the sun rose, Malcolm coughed and heaved as he pulled the casket onto dry land.

Malcolm grabbed a rock and pounded onto the front of the casket, gently enough to break the wood without hurting Adam.

His son lay in the casket. Tears in his eyes. A smile on his face.

“I guess it worked?”

“I puked them up as soon as I got in.”

Malcolm lifted Adam out of the casket, dunked him in the river and washed the puke off his shirt. He could see the fear in Adam’s eyes, as though he had disappointed everyone he knew back home. His Mom, Samuel, his friends at school.

“Are we going back home?” Adam said.

“Not for a while,” Malcolm said.

Adam looked towards the river, away from the town. His eyes traveled the turns of the river and the current of the river and the rocks in the river. “Do we know where it leads?” Adam said.

“No,” Malcolm said.

And they walked along the river. Malcolm stroked the hairs on Adam's head. A calm breeze rose over the mountains and the sun beamed down through the trees and Malcolm looked up and whispered towards the sky.