The Flags

The Wake

Kasper grips the sink tightly and tries to stand up. He's dizzy of course, he's been sitting on the bathroom floor bawling his brains out for the past 30 minutes. His vision becomes less blurry when he stares in the mirror, still hanging on to the edges of the sink with both hands. He's staring at his red swollen eyes in the mirror when someone softly knocks on the door. "It's occupied," Kasper tries to sound agitated, but fails when his voice falters at his first word. "Kasper, is that you? I've been looking for you for ages," Mr. Dorian asks through the wooden door. Mr. Dorian is the Meritt's neighbor and most trusted friend. Kasper breaks the stare with himself in the mirror to watch the handle jiggle. He unlocks the door and cracks it open enough to reveal one puffy green eye. "What do you want?" He dismally whispers, not able to look him the eyes.
"They're moving the coffins in 15 minutes," he waits a minute before lowering his head to try to look into Kasper's eyes. "You haven't said goodbye yet." Kasper wipes his eyes and sniffs before looking up at him. "Yeah, well, they didn't say goodbye to me, so I don't want to say goodbye to them." He pushes past Mr. Dorian to join the rest of his parent's friends. In the bathroom, the noise is muffled. Now, he can hear the cellist playing a sad song in between his parents' caskets and the people standing in small groups subtly competing over who was closer to the family. Kasper knows everyone here, and he occasionally gets pulled into a conversation circle. He had just escaped one with his mother's sister before someone tugs on his arm.
"Kasper! Hey little man, how's it going?" One of his dad's coworkers pulls him into a circle of four including Kasper. "My parents killed themselves two weeks ago, and now I'm at their wake. So pretty crappy, thanks for asking," he retaliated. Private Carson can get pretty nasty, and he knows that if he had said that to his face without being in this situation, he would've gotten his teeth knocked out. That's one perk, Kasper thought. I can do whatever I want, and people feel so bad for me I can get away with it. But Private Carson knows Kasper's toying with him, and he doesn't want to be known as "the jerk who was a douche to the kid whose parents killed themselves", but he couldn't let Kasper win this, so he acted innocently when playing with his feelings. "Of course, I would feel bad too if my parents were mentally ill enough to kill themselves when they have a kid. I mean, you have to be really selfish to leave your child alone on this planet because your problems are 'too hard to deal with'," He uses his fingers to make air quotes. Kasper can hear his mother's voice in the back of his mind advising him to be the bigger man and walk away. I'll walk away, He says in his head and clenches his fists. As soon as he's out cold and bleeding on the floor.
Kasper swings his arm at Private Carson's jaw, and his knuckles bounce off his bone. He immediately falls to the floor, cradling his cheek in his hands. He hurries to stand and put his hands up, but Kasper jabs him in the nose before he can. Private Carson stumbles back, but recoils and punches Kasper in the gut, making him hold his stomach and double over. He takes the opportunity to knee him in a sensitive area, but Kasper grabs it and pushes it back down before he makes contact. They both inspect each other when he rises back up. Kasper fits in a blow to Private Carson's left eye before his uncles Alex and Jake break the two up. Kasper squirms away to his parent's coffins just before Private Carson's Corporal shows up.
He walks over to his parents for the first time since they died. He recognizes the cellist, and the cellist recognizes him. Marvin winks, and digs his bow into the strings, making a horrible scratching sound that resembles a dying parakeet. Everyone in the building covers their ears and heads outside to mingle in the fresh air. When it's only them left, he sets his cello down and joins everyone outside, patting Kasper on the shoulder before leaving. He makes sure no one is still inside, then kneels between his parents and screams his lungs out.