Out of this World - A Short Story
OUT OF THIS WORLD
I have only been away for a short while and yet it already feels like a lifetime. This is meant to be a sad day, funerals nearly always are, but for some reason, it feels more like a beginning than an end. The last few weeks haven’t been easy. Watching the person you love slowly fade away saps the energy. But now that he’s gone, family and friends can finally get back to living their lives again.
I grew up in these fields. It’s where I spent the school holidays trying to be a man. I loved watching my grandfather and father doing what farmers do year in year out. Plough, sow, grow and harvest. When I was a small boy a field of corn felt like it was the whole world. Getting lost was the easy part, finding a way back out was always more difficult. I liked the feeling of being alone. I’ve always been like that, happiest in my own company. Often I would remain out of reach for what felt like hours, the increasingly desperate voices of my parents and older siblings taking on a greater emphasis as the minutes passed, begging me to reappear as quickly as I had vanished into thin air. Usually, they were too busy to pay me much attention. Disappearing made me feel wanted. Tools were downed as the search widened. It was usually hunger that forced me to bring the whole charade to an end. Sometimes I got scared and wondered if I would find my own way out when all I could see was corn. And then all of a sudden it was over as my mother’s welcoming arms swallowed me up. Her warm embrace was my favourite part of the whole drama. Father was the angry one, left to count the time he’d lost playing my game.
But just like the seasons, he passed on too, leaving me to do the work that I was always born to do. My brothers and sisters had drifted towards Dublin, leaving me to be me. I was always a country boy at heart, loved to hear the birds singing and the wind whistling through the trees. I loved the land; the feel of a spade slicing the soil was the best feeling in the world.
I always feel that it should rain when someone is being laid to rest, but for the first time in a few years, early summer has a reassuring warmth to it. As I round the corner into the yard I notice that the gravel has been freshly spread, with John the workman applying the finishing touches with an ancient rake. I wonder which door I should use. The front door is only for special occasions. Family and friends prefer the back one that leads directly into the kitchen, the very heart of any farm. It’s the usual hive of activity, but today feels different with everyone trying to look busy in an attempt to keep the sorrow at bay. So much so that nobody seems to notice my entrance.
I have lost count of the number of meals that I ate at this table, heartwarming stews cooked by a succession of women who knew the importance of sending the menfolk back out into a cold winter’s day with warmth in their tummies and a spring in their step. Today it is awash with sandwiches, cakes and cups of tea as family and friends prepare for what lies ahead. The eldest son is already stepping into his father’s shoes, leaving his two younger brothers to worry about their mother. It’s only in the last few weeks that they have really got to know her. Still, they don’t seem to realise that it is really she who is looking after them. She’s been doing it all her life so she’s hardly going to stop now. But she is strong enough to play their game. The daughters take a back seat. Their job is done. In the final months, they prepared him for what was to come, made his final journey a comfortable one.
I make my way towards the door at the end of the kitchen.
“He’s in a better place now,” says neighbour Kitty O’Neill.
She must have a direct line to God. Her husband Tom nods his head. He knows it’s easier to agree.
“Let’s face it, anywhere would be better than here right now Kitty,” pipes up local publican Frank O’Sullivan.
I like Frank, but he’s taken the recession to heart. It’s even overtaken the smoking ban in his all-time top ten conversation starters. It’s just as well he doesn’t do chat up lines. It’s one of the reasons his undisputed title as the area’s most ineligible bachelor has stood the test of time. I slip by, refusing to let anything deflect me from my course. Through the door, I turn right and then left at the end of the hall and I am finally where I want to be.
I have to see the body.
I enter the room slowly. Bowed heads pass, the odd person blessing themselves as they leave. Here there is a stillness that is in contrast to the busyness elsewhere. I cross in front of the fireplace and look down. Irvine and Sons have done a good job. They’ve been burying my family for generations. The body looks peaceful, at ease as the decaying process takes hold. I have always liked that blue tie. It was one of the few things we agreed upon. It sits nicely with his deathly pallor. I notice too that the bell is lying by his right hand. He always worried about being buried alive but judging by his perfect stillness he won’t be needing it. The silence is unnerved by the rustle of the local clergyman’s cassock as he enters the room, followed by the mourners that matter. Prayers are said before it’s time to say goodbye. I take one last look at him as the lid is lowered and slip out the front door.
The coffin follows, raised on the shoulders of men, with the quietness punctuated only by the soft crunch of black polished shoes on gravel as they shuffle slowly towards the hearse. A crowd of local onlookers are doing their best to look sad. If the truth be told they love days like this, the reminiscing and the chat. It’s not every day that they get to savour the sweet flavour of Peggy Browne’s strawberry sponge. The day that they have to bid farewell to Peggy will be a genuinely sad occasion.
At first, I’m not sure which car to get into.
And then I see my older sister. I have always liked Anne, she’s never been one for fuss and her dark sense of humour is made for days like this. As the car moves off she lets out a telling sigh. Anne has always tolerated family occasions rather than enjoyed them. She chuckles as she imagines the boys’ reaction to the will. It took some amount of guts to do what he has done. He knew only too well that rewarding his daughters’ loyalty would come at a price, but it was obviously one he was willing to pay. Setting the land free from the pull of past generations went against the grain, but it was time. He had confided as much in her the last time they had spoken, honoured her with the burden of knowing.
The final journey is as it should be. Dignified and slow. He was never one to rush. He had even taken his time to die, only slipping away when the new sofa arrived. Just like himself, the old one had reached the end of its days. He knew the boys would need something decent to sit on when the news broke. After all, It was the least he could do.
As the cortege enters the local town the strangest thing happens. He always loved horses and rarely missed a meeting at the local racecourse. It seems that his four-legged friends in the field running alongside the main road know as they move as one towards the gate to form an equine guard of honour.
The village is hushed; the shop fronts bowed in prayer as Garda Sergeant Patrick O’Neill stops what little traffic is coming the other way. Soon a never-ending line of eight cars reaches out into the countryside he has left behind.
I watch as the coffin is carried into the church but I stay outside. It must be all that time spent with nature. Inside was just a place I only visited when it got dark and when the sun came up again the next morning I was off wandering the fields, checking the livestock and doing the things that needed to be done.
An hour later they reappear, the sadness of the crowd following the wooden box back out into the open air. More tears are shed as they fall into place beside the graveside, their minds drifting towards the cup of tea to come and more importantly that delicious strawberry sponge. Those standing closest to the church hall are perfectly poised. But they will have to wait for another few minutes. The clergyman likes a crowd. Funerals and weddings are his FA Cup Final. Not content with what he has already said inside, he launches into another passionate eulogy.
Until it’s time.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”
The grandchildren step forward, each with petals in their hand, before one by one they let their cargo drop toward Australia.
It’s only when I look up that I notice my father and grandfather smiling over at me. I smile back. They beckon me, telling me that it’s okay, that it’s time to go.
I take one last look at the scene below and as the last petal falls onto my coffin I turn towards the bright white light and leave this world behind.
