Earth Can't Hold Us All

Clementine's POV: Someone To Blame

June 5th, 2080

"Jack Moore was a hard working man, who was loved dearly. His memory is all that we can keep of him as we watch him drift away," the funeral conductor says in a monotone. He speaks as if this is the same generic eulogy he gives at every funeral. "He will be at peace as his body explores the vast ocean."

The funeral conductor signals his long arm at the man standing next to my dad's casket. The man starts to push the casket off the edge of the dock.

"Wait! Stop!" I shout, running over to my father. I need to see him one more time, I need to make sure he's not sleeping. Everyone murmurs behind me as I pull the blanket off of his face.

His eyes are shut and his mouth hangs slightly open. My mother chose the traditional funeral because we only have to pay for the lidless boat-shaped casket and the morgue he was held in yesterday. She hated my father, of course she won't spend her well earned money on his dead body. But she should have. Cremations are expensive because it's dangerous to start fire in a village made of wood floating in the middle of the ocean. But the risk has never stopped anyone from cremating their loved ones, so the authorities decided to ticket people who start fires.

She should have felt guilty enough to pay for something more respectable than casting his body out into the ocean for the fish and birds to eat.

She should feel guilty enough to prove to me that she cares.

Instead she sits in the small audience behind me, awkwardly watching as I cry over my father's dead body one last time.

I set my hand on his cheek, his skin feels as cold as the inside of a fridge. He's still partially frozen from the morgue. The thought of him being in a place like that makes me sick. The realization that I'm touching my dead father's face in a comforting way makes me feel even sicker. He can't feel my touch, he can't hear my sniffling, yet he lays right in front of me. He's here but the important part of him is gone. He took himself away from me.

I start to make loud sobbing noises that I wasn't expecting from myself. My tears drip onto his face.

"I won't ever forget what we did to you," I whisper between exasperated gasps of air. "And I won't ever forget you." Then I let my legs go limp and I slowly and silently fall to the ground. I stop sobbing and let the tears crawl down my temples in silence. I'm aware of all the eyes fixed on me. The eyes that are watching and waiting for me to get up and gather myself so that we can continue on with the funeral.

But I just need to lay here. I need to lay next to his casket for a moment longer, waiting for myself to except that he will be food to the sea creatures he will float past in some minutes from now.

I hear foot steps walk up to me. I don't bother to glance over, I can tell that it's my mother by the clicking of her heels.

"Clem, you need to get up. Come sit with Hinge," she says very quietly, her voice blends into the sound of the ripples in the ocean.

I just keep looking up at the cloudless sky. My own body feels still and cold like my father's. I don't think I could move even if I wanted to.

"Darling, please. We need to continue with the funeral. It's time for your father to go now."

I ignore her. She inhales loudly, making an angry groan from deep in her throat.

"Clementine, there's nothing you can do about this but let him meet his grave. So get up and suck it up," she says loudly this time, obviously not caring if anyone hears. Her voice is solid and sure sounding. My stomach clenches, and my leg muscles twitch to move.