The worst part about waking up when you’re sad is that for a moment you wonder why your whole body hurts like you fell off a roof before you remember your life falling apart the night before.
At least, that’s what it’s like for Michael.
The light hurts his eyes. His stomach aches. He fights himself when his knees try to collapse. But he ventures outside his room, because his phone is full of messages he doesn’t want to reread and he needs to procure a suit somehow.
The suit problem solves itself when he opens his door. There’s a suit roughly his size hanging on the doorknob. His aunt must have put it there sometime this morning. The house is quiet as he moves down the stairs, his knees buckling with every step. He hasn’t eaten in so long it’s starting to take a toll on his whole body. He’s not hungry, but he’ll find food as soon as he can so he won’t faint.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the house. The funeral should be in a couple of hours, so someone should be home at least to take him.
He takes an apple from the counter and nibbles at it, his heart elsewhere. He leans against the counter, staring at the fridge. There are all sorts of family pictures on the fridge. Baby pictures of Michael, of his cousins. The rest of the family.
His aunt comes in from the garage, almost frenzied. Michael looks over in her direction. She seems to soften, slow down when she sees him. “Michael. You’re up. You could have slept a little.”
“I did,” Michael says. The digital clock on the microwave reads 9:24.
“A little more, I mean. We don’t leave until 12.”
Michael shrugs.
“Did you try on the suit?” she adds. “I left it on the door.”
“No,” Michael says. “Just woke up.”
“Of course. Go try it on now, just so we can see if we need to find you another suit.”
Michael tosses the remaining half-apple into the trash under the sink. He walks out of the kitchen and back to the room to do as he’s been asked.
He grabs the suit off the doorknob and shuts and locks the door behind him. He strips off his jeans and shirt and pulls on the suit pants and then the dress shirt and jacket. He buttons every other button of the dress shirt and halfheartedly straightens the jacket out. It’s a little big for him, loose at the shoulders and sleeves a bit too long, but it’ll do. No time to fuss. Not that he cares.
He changes back into his other clothes so he doesn’t wrinkle the suit, which has obviously just been pressed. It’s a nice suit. Maybe his cousin’s. Maybe his uncle’s.
He doesn’t want to go through with the funeral. Doesn’t want to sit through bullshit sermons his mother probably would have liked, doesn’t want to listen to more people talk about her, doesn’t want to be hugged. Doesn’t want to see her being lowered into the ground.
She wouldn’t like being alone in the ground. She’d be scared. Michael wishes they’d just cremated her. Then he wouldn’t have to see it, either, wouldn’t have to see her blank and lifeless face. Michael hopes they close the coffin during the ceremony.
Death probably sucks, Michael thinks. Being all cold and alone. Not feeling anything at all. Most people couldn’t imagine it. But Michael can. He lives out death everyday.
---
The funeral really is horrible.
“We are gathered here today to mourn the loss of Karen Clifford.”
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Give Me Love (Muke)
FanfictionMichael is looking for a new start and a way to manage his anger issues when he moves back to Sydney, leaving his mum behind, and moves in with his former best friend, Ashton. Unfortunately, Michael finds that starting over is much more difficult th...
