Pen Pal by J.T. Geissinger EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Author: J.T. Geissinger
- Language: English
- Genre: Gothic Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
It’s raining as my husband’s casket is lowered into the hole in the
ground. Raining hard, as if the sky itself is about to rip in half
like my heart has.
I stand motionless under an umbrella with the other mourners, listening
to the priest drone on about resurrection and glory, blessings and suffering,
redemption and the holy love of God. So many words, and all so
meaningless.
Everything is meaningless. There’s a Michael-shaped hole in my chest,
and nothing matters anymore.
That must be why I feel so numb. I’m empty. Grief has blown me apart,
scattering my bones into a desert wasteland where they’ll bake in silence
under a merciless sun for a thousand years.
A woman behind me quietly weeps into her handkerchief. Sharon?
Karen? A colleague of Michael’s who I met at a long-ago faculty party. One
of those awful holiday work parties in a school auditorium where they serve
cheap wine in plastic cups and people stand around making awkward small
talk until they’re drunk enough to say what they really think about each
other.
Sharon or Karen behind me told Michael he was a prick at that party. I
can’t remember why, but that’s probably why she’s crying now.
When someone dies, you start counting all the ways you failed them.
The priest makes the sign of the cross over his chest. He closes his Bible
and steps back. I walk slowly forward, bend down to grasp a handful of soil
from the pile to one side, then toss it onto the closed casket.
The wet clump of dirt makes an ugly hollow sound when it lands on the
gray lid of the coffin, an uncaring splat of finality. Then it slides off, leaving
a smear of brown behind like a shit stain.
Abruptly, I’m shaking with anger. I taste ashes and bitterness in my
mouth.
What a stupid ritual this is. Why do we even bother? It’s not like the
dead can see us mourning them. They’re gone.
A sudden gust of cold wind rattles the leaves in the trees. I turn and
walk away through the rain, not looking back when someone softly sobs my
name.
I need to be alone with my grief. I’m not one of those people who likes
to commiserate over a tragedy. Especially when the tragedy is my own.
When I open the front door of the house, it takes a moment for me to
register that I’m home. I have no recollection of the drive from the gravesite
to here, though the blank spot in time doesn’t surprise me. Since the
accident, I’ve been in a fog. It’s as if my brain is blanketed in thick clouds.
I read somewhere that grief is more than an emotion. It’s a physical
experience, too. All kinds of nasty stress chemicals get released into the
bloodstream when a person is grieving. Fatigue, nausea, headaches,
dizziness, food aversion, insomnia… The list of side-effects is long.
I’ve got them all.
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB