His finger lightly touches the bottom of my chin, and he pushes my face upwards so that I'm looking into his eyes. Eyes that are solely on my lips.
I can't help it. I bite them.
"Oh, Delta," he whispers, quietly giggling under his breath. His laugh...
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They chose a black coffin.
I didn't understand why they decided on black at first. The world is already as dull as it is, with very few people in it to make it colourful.
But then I started to realize, the eyes in that coffin were once black. Such an intimidating and brooding colour, a hue that held the magnitude of space itself.
I used to think those eyes were beautiful, but the more I got to know the person behind them, the more I realized that they were so much more than beautiful.
They were broken, yet they held more depth than the deepest trench in the sea. They were frightening. They were captivating. They were extraordinary.
They made me feel like the world really is just a little bit warmer, that flowers can still grow in battle fields, that trees can be planted in place of the dead.
Though I know nothing can ever replace those inky eyes that lie still in that coffin, closed off to the world and never to be seen again. Not those particular eyes, anyways.
The shiny black coffin hangs over a large hole in the ground, six feet deep and several degrees colder. By now, light flurries of snow have draped the box in a blanket of shivering wool.
I watch as the white roses placed on the box already begin to wilt, the cold air scrunching up their petals and pealing them off one by one.
I've only ever been to one funeral, but that was a very long time ago. Now, it seems I've completely forgotten how they work.
I only have static hearing too, because the words leaving Lewis Parker's mouth dissipate into the air like water vapour. I watch uselessly from the side as he gives his own written speech about the body that lies in the box: things he wish he did with this person before they died; things he wish he'd changed.
I don't listen to much of it though. My mind drifts elsewhere.
I hadn't prepared a speech, which makes me feel like I hadn't gotten a memo, like I'm just here for participation. But I don't really know the person in that coffin, I only know of them from what I've been told.
A familiar hand finds mine, our fingers knitting together perfectly. It's an act of comfort, or maybe seeking comfort, because I can hear someone's faint breaths beside me, pulse erratic and very uneven.
I grip their hand as tightly as I can, and when Lewis finally finishes his speech and paves the way for someone else, I let it go.
Xavier walks forward with a heavy heart, a crumpled piece of paper in his hand with splattered blue ink written inside. It's messy, but it holds everything he's ever wanted to say inside of it, everything he couldn't find the courage to.
