"Hi, Lily," I say with a sad smile. I stand stiffly on the marble floor, next to her majestic grave with a green grass bed and stone encasing. I imagine her lying beneath the grave, curled up in slumber like she did when she was still breathing, but then I stop myself.
It's been a hundred days since she died, and I know that a hundred days after death is an important date for grievers. I don't want to encounter her parents, and they don't want to encounter me, so I'm here at dawn. It's still dim, but the rising sun gives everything a strange lilac cast. It's beautiful.
There's a flower pot to either side of her name, and a stone platter where relatives are to place offerings. I haven't brought anything to pray with, so I hope her family remembers all her favourites. I can't leave a sign I had been here at all.
YOU ARE READING
combustion
Cerita PendekWhen paper burns, it doesn't just turn to ashes. This is the story of Lily and Keaton. Of the boy who was hopelessly lost, and of the girl who was his oasis in a sea of strangers. Most of all, of how he found himself turning paper to ashes.
