After the coffin disappeared, there was silence. The air seemed to hum with a certain magic following the prayer, but otherwise there was no movement.
Eventually, however, motion returned to the scene. The moment Erin and the man lowered their hands, people at the edges of the crowd began to shuffle away. Erin returned to her spot with the four of us, not looking at anyone. No one spoke.
It was a surreal feeling for me. I was only present because I had nowhere else to go, but it was very clear I didn't belong; this was a very heavy moment for the people around me, yet I had no attachment to any part of it. Observing the lives of others from an outside perspective was nothing new to me, but I was usually thankful, to some extent, for having no involvement in their lives. This was different, though. Surrounded by people I had a reason to be involved with, I was unable to relate to them at all. I wished, for a moment, I could share in their sadness.
We stood in silence for another moment, collectively deciding to give Erin some time to sort out her thoughts. We didn't move until we were the last ones on the stage, wherein Owl gave Erin a strong shoulder squeeze, which turned into a brief hug, before moving towards the stairs. After descending the crutches were exchanged for the wheelchair, again, and we started moving through the streets of the city. The crowd had almost entirely dispersed from the square, meaning the streets were crowded. Owl and Erin moved together, and everyone naturally moved around them. The same luxury was not afforded to the rest of us.
It didn't take long for me to get separated from the two of them, and it didn't take long after that to lose sight of Bear's head above the crowd. I panicked a bit but kept moving down the street we were on. After a few seconds of aimlessly walking, the thought occurred to me that this was what being on ground level during the onset of the wave would've felt like, without getting mauled of course. Thinking of it that way, the panic subsided.
After another short bit of walking, there was a violent tug on my shirt collar, dragging me sideways through the crowd. I ended up on the side of the road, in front of a building. In front of me stood the man that had joined our small group earlier.
"The others are inside. I won't be staying."
"Understood… and thank you, I guess."
"Sure."
He started walking towards the crowd.
"Hold on a second, I never got your name."
"People call me Vulper."
He disappeared into the crowd in the middle of his sentence, leaving his name hovering in the air. The name meant nothing to me, so I shrugged off the experience and walked inside the building.
What greeted me was a dimly lit, almost cheap-looking restaurant. The tables and chairs were made of wood, with nothing special about them. Each table had a single, decently sized candle on it, which were the only sources of lighting for the place, aside from the front door whenever someone came in. The front wall was stone with no windows, which was the same for the rest of the walls. Even though it was a simple place, it was well kept, without any dust or leftover food or fluid on any surface. It was also nearly silent inside, the stone walls blocking any outside noise and the few people inside barely contributing to it either. I noticed the three people I was looking for at a table in the corner and made my way towards them, noticing that the floors weren't sticking to my shoes, which was a nice change from what I was used to.
The table seated four and I took the last available spot. Owl and Bear greeted me with their eyes while Erin was just staring at her hands clasped on the table in front of her. The glow from the candle seemed to only illuminate their faces but was still bright enough to keep my eyes from adjusting to the dark, giving a feeling of isolation from the rest of the restaurant. Eventually, someone arrived with four cups, and the only way I knew they were coming was because I could feel the floorboards flex. The man delivering the drinks was an older looking man, who exchanged looks and a nod with Owl before walking off. He was only lit by the candle for the brief moment he stood by the table, seemingly disappearing into the darkness of the restaurant when he left. The cup given to me just had water in it, but I could smell, even from across the table, that everyone else got something stronger.
After everyone had had some time to settle in with their drinks, Owl broke the silence.
"He was happy, in his final moments."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
There was silence.
"I just wish I could've seen him one more time; spent one more day with him, or even an hour; had him tell me one more story. Nothing real or allegorical, just something fun… just one more good memory."
"That's a normal feeling. I knew him for more time than a man should be allowed to live, and I still wish I could've seen him one more time. What you'll find as you continue your journey through life and lose more people you hold close, as it is the tendency of the world to take those people away from you first, is that you will always have that feeling; even if you spend the entire day of their death with them, you will still wish you had more time."
"That's hardly comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be. There is no true comfort in the face of loss and grief. You either learn to live with it or you don't. This is the first major loss in your life, and I believe that knowing there are more to come, while not necessarily helpful in the moment, helps you establish a better mindset to deal with it. This feeling can be transitory, but only if you make it so."
"How do I do that?"
"That's a process you'll need to go through yourself. It could last a week, or it could last years. The better question is, how much of this feeling do you want to get rid of? Missing your loved ones isn't a bad thing, you know."
"I know, but it feels like a piece of me has been torn out."
"That would be because a piece of you has been torn out."
She just sighed in response.
"Let me tell you a story. I met your father a nearly incomprehensibly long time ago, and by that point we were both old men by typical standards. We met on the worst day of both our lives, right in the middle of the 'Great Cataclysm', or the Big Familial Pissing Match as I call it, but that's beside the point. From that day on, we were friends. We saw the end of that war out together, which solidified both our positions in the public eye, something I couldn't have done without his help, a point he always disagreed with me on.
"From that point on, from the very first day I truly met him, I never saw him truly smile. Depending on the situation he'd give a polite smile, but never did he ever give a true, happy smile. That was, until the first time he held you."
He started smiling himself.
"I was only there because he came to me a nervous wreck when he heard your mother, may she rest in peace, was in labor. That was the most scared I had ever seen him. Even with all the shit he had gone through, everything we had gone through together, that was the only time I ever saw him truly scared. But when he took you out of your mother's arms, that all melted away, and for the first time, I saw his face break into a true, happy smile. Every day he spent with you after that, for the first few years at least, he had a hard time containing his glee. Even the knowledge that you were around, living happily and healthily, was enough to make him happy. That's how I know he was happy when he died."
"It seems you knew a different version of my father than I did."
"No, he was always the same person. People don't change, they just adjust which aspect of themselves comes out strongest. That happiness, that desire to have someone that mattered in that way in his life, was always there. I believe the version of him you knew was the truest version of him."
"Thank you."
At some point she started crying. The table descended into silence again. Something had come to mind while Owl was talking, and I decided to share it before the silence became awkward.
"The memories you have are still there, and their value hasn't decreased at all. I'd actually say they've become more valuable, but that's beside the point. Those are the same memories you had of him before his death, and you would've kept them even if he had kept living. He still exists in those memories, so you have yet to truly lose him. Honestly, I don't have a lot of great memories, and almost none of my parents, but I feel like it would be better to have some, knowing I won't get any more, than to have none at all."
"Well said."
"I mostly just restated what you said earlier."
"Sure, but you understood it."
It was then that Erin sat up fully in her chair and wiped her eyes.
"Thank you, both of you, but this isn't something I'm going to get over in a week, much less an hour. I think, right now, I just need some time alone to sort things out."
She then stood up and left. She had never touched her drink.
"Well, since she's not having it, feel free to have her drink."
I looked at both of their cups. They had both emptied them at some point while I wasn't looking.
I picked up her cup and looked into it. It was just water.