In My Hands, Know Suffering

4: Freedom Undefined

If the earth was going to populate these lands, people should at least produce the useful ones, not the useless, demented ones. Seriously. I'm not saying I'm not one of them. Who knows, you might be one of them too, you know?

When people sang for the dead, what did it entail for the departed?  In the end, it didn't really matter. In dark times, there are the moods often created, crafted, by the people surrounding the dead. They can feel the flow of such absence between the disheartened and the merry.

Lyrics were heard, choirs would use certain words to uplift such ode, but the more they sang, the heavier it was for the hearts of those who were left behind. Unpredictable plays can cloud the uncertain with their feelings of loss. Everyone else wore black that illustrated their mourning. Such a waste of precious life, but if it truly was their time to go, then everyone else who knew them must learn to let go.

The funeral took all afternoon as the school paid its respects on the lives taken by the fire. One of them was Bayoe, one was a cafeteria worker, another was a staff who tried putting out the fire. Their families were there, mostly it were the mothers and wives who wept at the loss. A loss that most beloved couldn't accept.

Castellone thought of the families the staff workers fed. Did they have kids? Were they the breadwinner? How many lives depended on them? Was Bayoe the first born? Was he an only child? The list was endless.

He searched the crowd. A dark color and silky strand caught his attention. He knew he saw those features before. Due to his prying eyes, he caught the gaze of a girl looking right back at him as if it was the end of a dreaded era. He realized she was one of his team mates. Someone he never even conversed with, someone who wasn't like the rest of the people in the team that lingered on complains and all the blame.

There was a look in her eyes that called out to him. Deep inside, something shook whatever it was that slumbered within. His brows furrowed, not even noticing that he was already glaring at her. Like she was vermin. Something called out to step away from an incoming strike. But despite those voices that kept telling him to stay off, a light radiated a faint beam of something unfamiliar. The oddity of it made him think twice.

When the funeral ended, the girl vanished along with the crowd. He was with his friends while they headed back across the newly trimmed lawn of the cemetery. Blaze opened up the topic of Sirius going to Clawde.

"It's the day after tomorrow already? That fast, huh." Blaze said.

"Apparently Lementine is moving in with Hail soon ever since they got married. She wants me to move in so I could be familiar with whatever our dad left there." Sirius said.

Hail was a friend of Kerxis, and Lementine was Sirius's older step-sister. They shared the same father. Castellone can't help but wonder why the adults were proposing and getting married now. Perhaps they were mentally and emotionally ready to start their own family. At his age, accounts of those engaging in nuptial affairs and future finances didn't really matter. School first, party and sex came later.

He remembered a time from when they were younger and Kerxis was in his early twenties, a ripe age for marrying, if that's what most people considered. Their mother acted like she was the grandmother of their neighbor's children even though she still had Castellone to...'coddle.'

He told Kerxis, "I think mom wants to be a grandma already."

Kerxis shrugged and decided to ignore them. At that time, Castellone thought it was a good opportunity to finally talk to his older brother. It turned out that Kerxis didn't want to start up a conversation, or a mere connection. Castellone fell silent after, never saying a single word since then, not unless Kerxis initiated the talk.