Painted Crowns (on hold)

(1) June's Dead

On the day that Mister Mockebury died, I powered up the lawnmower for the first time all summer and doomed myself to watch him fall from that roof. That ladder was ancient anyway, rusting at the hinges and bowing awkwardly in the center where he stood to clean out the gutters at the top of the library. His first stupid decision was working at the library in the first place, with that damn cartoon raccoon in the window trying to get me to read by just staring me down when I walked by, and his second was bringing that ladder onto the first roof to reach the second one. The engine of the lawnmower purred at my feet, chopping the tops off of each blade of grass when the ladder collapsed. Snapped completely in half. He tumbled down and down, tearing at the loose shingles of the roof as he slammed into the first roof. His fat arms flung wildly, but caught nothing. He rolled, flew, and splattered. Bones broke, blood sprayed the sidewalk, and a sickening shriek escaped him that drew the entire town out. Honestly, that was the only way anyone was ever going to go near that library, like it was some publicity stunt gone horribly wrong.

He died of a heart attack in the hospital after they showed him the medical bill. At least that's what my friends and I decided.

Strange how it brought the entire town together then, just to gawk at the morbid display of the most intimidating of all of Charity's constants: death. Death isn't limited to Charity, assuming that would be obnoxiously ignorant, but somehow, death was the thing that brought the town back together. No matter how far we try to run from this shit hole, backwater equivalent of FarmVille, death is the one thing that reels us in again. We don't come back to say hello to old friends, we don't come back for weddings or graduations. Anyone who gets out tends to stay out, myself included. Yet somehow, I'm on this damn bus destined for the only stop in Granite, Ohio with nothing more than a candy bar and a headache.

June, could you have done me one final favor and died anywhere but Charity? I'd have really appreciated it.

"Next stop, Charity Bus Station A." The bus driver buzzes over the intercom. Streetlamps flash through the windows, illuminating the strange stains on the ceiling in short bursts. How long have I been staring at the roof of this thing? I emerge from the warm shell of my jacket and rub the stiffness out of my face with my hands. My shoes clunk as I sit up, echoing against the loose metal sheeting that lines the aisle.

"You can just call it Charity Station," I say to the driver. "The people who named it planned for this place to be bigger than it actually is."

"I was just calling it what the map says," the driver responds casually. "Sometimes it's all I get to do this time of night, so I read everything."

"Can't be an exciting job," I shrug and check my phone as I speak. The only notifications on it are my personal alarms, ready to set off in the next four minutes. 'Get up or you'll miss your stop, dumbass'...did I really set this for myself? I had my headphones in my ears that whole time. If I didn't wake up, I would have blown my eardrums out. Sleepy me would have been furious with the smartass me that set this four hours ago. I'm glad smart me woke me up. "Sitting alone in a bus all the time?"

"It's not too bad," he explains. His eyes never leave the road, but there's something in his voice that makes me believe that he's been craving some sort of conversation. "It's kind of soothing."

"Maybe I'll be a bus driver then," I note aloud. "Could use some soothing right about now."

"If you don't mind me asking, what are you doing out this way? This stop is pretty dead."

"Funeral," I state with a half-smile. "That's all that ever happens here."

"I'm sorry for your loss," his voice goes sullen and the conversation dies for a moment. The wheels click as the road breaks into potholes. The trees hang over the road, sweeping the top of the bus like they're brushing the dust off of their leaves. "Someone close?"