Spilling Guts

Part 109 - The Funeral

Thursday, 11:30AM

The funeral started with photos, and ended with Parker's body.

The funeral director had taken time to arrange most of Parker Lenore's photos for the wake; printed overlarge on cardstock or canvas. The gallery exhibition Parker had never gotten in life. A few art critics, friends of the family or just curious, had been invited to pay respect to art and death. Once through the front door, visitors saw oversized pillars of buildings in white and silver, ghosts of a city. Further on the black and white photos moved to peeling birch trees, the inner bark colored sepia. Then a park in dreary but still living autumn frost. Backwards in time, the last breath of summer, greenery and fruit being picked off trees by hungry hands.

Near the middle of the gallery, picked out by Charlotte Lenore and Allan for its vibrancy, cheerfulness, and direction from Parker's last letter in her safety deposit box, was a photo of a blond haired man cheering the photographer with a cup as he walked out the door. Louis frozen in gold and sepia tones long before the Watch sent him to the Freewill compound.

Louis stood frozen in front of the photo, wearing mourning black that hadn't seen the outside of his closet since Terry died. The funeral felt like a bubble of grief and sorrow where no other problems could exist. Not even the burn on his chest under a layer of bandages. His problems with Will seemed small at a funeral because neither of them were lying in a box. He didn't know what to think about a woman that had drugged him for money, and yet had a photo of him in a post-death gallery. Had she felt guilty? Remorse? Or had she really believed that putting vials of who-knew-what in his coffee was best for him?

One could not question the dead. And if anyone asked Louis what he thought of Parker, he wouldn't have an answer. He didn't know why he said yes to attending Parker's funeral when Megan and Teegan offered. His feelings about her were too complicated, too amorphous, and would take time to parse and solidify. But he still felt sorry for her death though he hadn't known her well.

He hadn't even known Parker's sister's was named Charlotte until Megan and Teegan shared their report with him.

Even now, Megan and Teegan hung out near the back of the gallery. giving him space while still watching his back. Megan's crutch had been decorated with stickers of koi and broccoli, but she looked ready to swing it if anything went awry. He had only come to the funeral because it felt better to do something then wait around for Will's sleep analysis to finish.

Looking up at Parker's surviving sister near the end of the gallery, he could see the resemblance. Charlotte sat with a cane and her step-father on one side, and a huge, gray fluff of a dog on the other.

How would he introduce himself? What would he say to them? "Hi, you sister drugged me"?

He didn't have to say anything because when Charlotte saw him, her face, drawn and gray like the beginning of the gallery, brightened. She rose from her seat, balanced on her cane and step-father's arm.

"Oh, hi. You were in the gold cafe photo."

"Yeah, that's me." It was odd to be seen and recognized by a stranger. Perhaps it was due to the tinted contacts he wore; the shades used to make him feel invisible, and now he was doing without. He held out his hand for her to shake. "Louis. I used to be one of her frequent customers when she worked at Bean Scoot."

He remembered Parker's smile, talking about her new camera lens and what she wanted to accomplish with it. Her sister would miss that smile too.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he continued. "She was... someone to look forward to."

Parker's step-father shook his hand as well. "According to her letter, she looked forward to you too. You were one of her favorite customers. You were the one that talked about physical therapy stretches, right?"

"...yeah." Louis pivoted from foot to foot. It had been leftover knowledge from when he had been training to be a physical therapist. Ages ago. He had mentioned it once to Parker, stretches that could, with enough practice and use, help with inflammation and joint pain. And when he came back the next day she asked about more stretches. He didn't think she would remember, or share that.

"That helped her a lot when she was trying to find better pain management," said Charlotte. "Thank you."

Unable to think of anything else to say, Louis bowed his head and murmured. "You're welcome."

The gray dog, nudged it's muzzle against Louis' hand, prompting a pat on the head; it's fur softer than Louis assumed. He nodded and moved on as more people came to talk to Charlotte and Allan, taking his place in the line to view Parker one last time.

Further in, the gallery blossomed with colors saturated by nature; a self portrait of Parker from a high-rise window showing the glory of the sun setting over the mountains, the bronze tinted light turning her pink highlights into neon streaks, her smile in rose colors and the coffee cup in hand gilded in the hard plastic shine. Black and white to color. Death to life. Memory to hope.

In the coffin, Parker laid to rest with the neon streaks in her hair re-dyed, vibrant and glowing. Her made up face gave the semblance of sleep. The morticians had bound her in a pastel dress with touches of pink, orange, purple, and green. She looked like an opal nestled in satin.

Louis had no words or tears for her, though sorrow crinkled the skin around his eyes and his nose burned.

Farewell, he thought. You are missed.

And then he took his seat amongst the dozens of people that knew Parker better.