Burn Your Local Church

Jealous Of The Dead

"Umm excuse me." A women turned around and looked at me. "Who is in the hearse?"

She gave me a nasty look. "Why are you here if you don't even know who passed?"

I forced a gentle smile onto my face. "It's a long story that I'm sure you don't have time for." She nodded slightly. "Just who died?"

She crossed her arms across her chest. "Jeffrey's son."

"Who?"

"Cameron."

I felt my heart start racing. "Cameron who?!"

"Jones? Camer-"

"ARE YOU SERIOUS? !" My voice was raging and a small part of me told me to just calm down but the rest of me was yelling at her.

Her eyes narrowed onto mine. "Are you okay?"

"How could I be okay?!"

She touched my shoulder and I nudged it away. Her face was turned as if she was looking at me like I was a preschooler and she was my sympathetic teacher. In my opinion, that just made everything worse.

She looked at me once more before turning and shaking her head solemnly and walking away. She merged into a large group of people who were all drenched in black clothing and tears. There faces all showed pain but I knew half of them must just be really good actors.

No one ever cared this much when you died in our village. You might get a few people saying goodbye if you're lucky, but that's it. No one ever really asked for or requested a proper ceremony. Everyone was too focused on other and more important things. All anyone ever wanted was to die and move to "the next world" so I suppose the reason no one ever did anything for the dead is because they were all deeply jealous that they had died instead of them.

I sat on a bench outside of a giant land that had a sign in beautiful cursive that read °CEMETERY° . Within the giant space of land, which was completely grassy and green, but felt more gray, there was the giant group of Christians. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, facing inward toward a rectangular hole in the ground. A headstone stood at the small side of the rectangular hole, and a black box was being lowered into the ground.

Of course I knew what was happening. And I knew the person inside of that box was Cameron, but I was in denial. I secretly just kept hoping it wasn't Cameron. The last thing I ever said to him was that I don't love him and I never will.

Should of's and would of's cross my mind and endless moments of opportunity stream endlessly through my head. A guilt feeling makes it's home in my head and I can feel a long time of guity days ahead of me.

The group of people all said some words together in sync and then two people stood forward and spoke one by one. "He, was a good kid." The man said. He was wearing all black and holding the women beside him's hand. She had tears running down to her neck and falling to the ground beneath her. "Cameron will be loved and missed by many. Although he had a few problems along the way, he was as close to perfect as it can get."

The women stepped forward and opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. Only tears.

Eventually, a large machine lowered the box with Cameron in it into the whole in the ground. More people were crying now. Everyone worked together to put dirt back on top of the ground where it came from.

I wondered how many people were there just to be there. I wondered how many people actually cared, actually knew him the way I did, actually made efforts for him.

I stayed sitting on the bench as people started leaving one by one. Only a boy stayed behind. Even after the parents left, this boy stayed there. He eventually sat down on the opposite side of the headstone so it was like he was facing Cameron. I couldn't tell if the boy was crying or not; his back was to me.

Two and a half hours later, when the sun was beginning to fall, the boy stood up. He began walking away in the opposite direction than everyone else. I stood up when he was far enough away. I stood in the same place he did. I didn't say anything. I was just thinking and hoping Cameron could hear my thoughts.

I looked down at my feet. On the grass where the boy sat was a card. I picked it up. It wasn't expired or anything. I assumed it was the boys. I pushed it into my pocket and started jogging in the direction that the boy went. He went in towards a forest. I've never been in this forest and it was unfamiliar to me.

I looked around and started walking straight. I had no idea where the boy went or which direction he walked in. I looked down and around the ground, but there was no sign of footprints. The land seemed pretty dry so footprints wouldn't have even been imprinted.

After five minutes of walking, I saw a small clearing of land to the left. I jogged over to the clearing. As I got closer, I heard water dipping. I was running alongside a clear stream of water. It looked very deep and it was dark blue. When I reached the land clearing, I noticed that it was a body of water. It had a crazy current and branches and sharp rocks jabbing out of the water. The water looked deadly.

There was a bridge going across the water. It was high up. The boy was standing on the top rail of the bride.

He was going to jump.