Death of Death

Myrtle shifted uncomfortably, scratching her neck. She wasn’t sure why the formalities were still necessary. She wore a long, black dress that swished down by her ankles, covered in sock-like black tights. A black scarf was wound around her neck, and she carried a tiny black umbrella, that wouldn’t be useful in keeping the rain out if the dark clouds above decided to open on her.

‘Hi, Myrtle. Thanks for coming.’ Mrs Hartnell greeted Myrtle with a sort of watery smile, her eyes soft and untouched by the gesture. Her hands were clasped together in thick, black gloves, a single rose pinned to her black coat.

‘Of course,’ Myrtle replied. The funeral was a small gathering, only ten or so people bothering to show up. Myrtle wasn’t even sure she’d show up –but Victor was her boyfriend of almost two years. It felt obligatory more than anything else –the girlfriend of an unfortunate car accident victim showing up to his funeral, the passing on of his body to the earth.

There wasn’t a funeral director, nor did they lower the body into the ground. Victor was already beneath them, waiting for the next stage of his life. Stuck in an in-between state as the last traces of him left his body and got warped through time, his spirit stuck in suspended animation, a fluid, continuous cycle, the concepts of beginning and end so milky that they merged together as a liminal space.

Victor’s gravestone was a small, granite stone that jutted out of the ground like it had been there for centuries, which, it probably had. Any single gravestone in the cemetery had probably been cycled through a dozen or so people who had died, repolished and the markings erased every time someone new had come to the end of their current life. The caskets degraded with the earth and had mostly dematerialised by the time the next one was inserted, the body rotting deep in the soil, the spirits whisked away into another land.

‘We have gathered here today to acknowledge the passing of Victor Gregory Hartnell, my beloved son, the boyfriend and a friend to many.’ Mr Hartnell, who Myrtle had met once or twice, stood at the front of the small crowd, beside the gravestone. His face was solemn but not sad, formal but his eyes were dry. ‘He led a good life, and I wish him my warmest regards for the next phase of his life, wherever it may lead him. Please, let’s take a moment of silence.’ Mr Hartnell lowered his eyes, his hands clasped together in front of him.

The quiet hum of polite conversation died down. Myrtle stared at the ground, picking at loose skin on her finger with her thumb. Wind whistled in the treetops, bringing with it the scent of greasy burgers and chips from a nearby McDonald’s. Myrtle’s stomach growled. She wondered what she would be having for lunch that day.

‘Thank you all for attending. If you would like, you can stay by the grave a little longer. I’m sure Victor would like that.’ Mr Hartnell stepped away from the grave and rejoined his wife in the crowd. The service was short, and Myrtle swore they got shorter and shorter as the years passed. As the tradition of extensive ceremonies died, as technology advanced, as life and death became a non-linear cycle rather than a fixed certainty. Slowly, people started to disperse. Myrtle knew a few of them –some family members she’d met, a couple of close friends. None of them looked truly sad, and, Myrtle realised, she wasn’t either. Victor would be caught up in the messy, life-death state by now. He’d be moving on, and she knew she would too.

‘I hope you have a good next life,’ Myrtle said to the gravestone. Mrs Hartnell slowly approached her side.

‘We’ll see him again, you know that,’ she said. Myrtle nodded. She could almost feel him, an inexplicable tug towards the spirit cultivating beneath the ground. Yet somehow, she was sad. A glum melancholy feeling, a pitiful pointlessness of life without inevitable end. What was all their late nights spent talking until the early hours of the morning, spending evenings curled up in front of the T.V with a bowl of popcorn and their shared bike rides into the sunset if nothing truly ended it all? She’d be here, and Victor would continue his messy, stagnant life in some way or the other. Would she still love him, or was his looks more important to her than she realised? Myrtle hated the advance of technology for doing this to her –creating a life devoid of death was a life sapped of joy, of sadness, of the things that used to matter.

Myrtle flinched in shock as she felt a tear drip down her face. She hadn’t been sad, exactly. She wasn’t mourning Victor. She was mourning the death of meaning, the death of the end, the death of finality and the death of death itself. She was mourning the loss of a time where life meant more than existence and death was a linear concept, the full stop of someone’s life.

Losing death took away the pain of grief, but replaced it with something far worse.

Myrtle glanced at the gravestone one last time. She wondered if the degradation of the casket had already begun to take place, reabsorbed into the earth, the final contribution of the deceased before the next stage begun. She wondered if Victor’s body would be accepted into the soil as a part of the world beneath her while his life took on another form. She wondered if Victor had really died in the car accident, or just moved on with his life, deciding to leave her behind. Myrtle wondered a lot of things, but mostly she wondered what she wanted for lunch.

She turned towards the McDonald’s, bidding the Hartnells a parting smile, her mind already wandering, the sadness evaporating like smoke in the wind. She’d have a burger, she thought. She’d enjoy it because she knew the cow she’d be eating had died and that she was envious of.