The Shattered Prayer

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I plan to spend the day reading, give my strained mental faculties a break before the grey matter starts to ooze from my ears. I can see them now, those wolves, licking my ears for a taste of my tangled brain as it unravels from the hollows of my hearing. Tastes like Brunswick Stew, they’d say, and wipe their mouths on the sleeves of my shirt. My mother would bury me in pink. ‘It was her favourite dress’, she’d lie.

Richard would roll his eyes.

‘I thought she hated pink’, J the only would say.

Weasel would step up to the coffin, stare thoughtfully at my corpse, ‘You know she promised me her skull, right?’

‘That was twenty years ago’, Richard the Previous would say.

‘Its still binding’, Weasel would say.

J the Only would shrug, ‘Cutting off her head is no worse than dressing her in pink. And anyway, wasn’t she supposed to be decapitated in a horrible ceiling fan accident.’

‘She changed her mind’, Richard the Previous would say, ‘when the script-writers for Nightstalker stole her idea.’

‘Where’s my computer?’ Bahamas Rich would ask.

‘Oh its at home in her backpack’ my mother would say, ‘I’m sure she’d have sent it to you but we kept her tied up in the basement and fed her giblets.’

‘Giblets!’ Adam would walk in late, ‘how awful. I’m sorry I’m late but there’s a lovely Irish pub just down the street that serves the most delightful aged whiskeys. So how did she die?’

‘Wolves ate her brain as it oozed out of her ears’.

And Adam would nod knowingly, ‘Revenge, I expect, for all those little animals she ate.’

‘Her brain was certainly tasty’, Bas would mumble, trying to hide his fangs and the fur sprouting on the back of his hands.

‘I sure could use a hamburger right now’, Richard the Previous would say.

‘I hope there’ll be kosher food at the reception’, Ruby would say, ‘I’m a jewish native american romany-gypsy african-american australian-aboriginal lesbian whale’

‘What are you doing here?’, Richard the Previous would ask.

‘For the free buffet’, and Ruby would sigh, ‘remember how she used to bring us dough-nuts. She was my best friend.’

‘You hated her’, Richard the Previous would say, ‘and she was my best friend.’

‘No she was my best friend’, Tami would say, ‘I’ve known her 24 years. Why is she dressed in pink? She hated pink. We should dress her in a star-trek uniform. She loved star-trek.’

‘She hated star-trek’, Richard the Previous would say, waving a comic-book, ‘she’d want to be dressed in black, like the sandman.’

‘I’ll dress her in black’, Weasel would say, ‘when I break into her tomb tonight to take her skull and sexually defile her corpse.’

And J the Only would say, ‘Why not just leave her naked - she loved showing off those tits’

And everyone would nod sagely, ‘She did have nice tits’.

‘Do you think’, Bas would ask Weasel, ‘you could get me one of her femurs when you break into that tomb tonight? Those thighs look awfully meaty.’

‘Sure’, Weasel would say, ‘if you sell me your soul.’

And a card would arrive from Anthony, and Adam would read it aloud, ‘You know how I hate sending cards, since they’re a rip-off, but I thought I would make an exception on this solemn occasion. Sorry I can’t be there, but my wife wouldn’t let me.’

And Adam would say, ‘His wife’s a lovely woman, just lovely. They’re expecting their eighteenth child you know.’

Richard the Previous  would stare at my corpse, expecting it to roll over any minute now.

‘We should start the funeral’, my mother would say, ‘so I can get home and count her FEMA money’.

‘Yes’, Don would say, ‘we’re going to buy an old chevy and put it up on blocks in the front yard, so we can keep up with our neighbors.’

‘And a spitoon’, my mother would say, ‘don’t forget the spitoon.’

‘And if we have enough left over’, Don would say, ‘we might invest in a velvet Elvis or some Iraqi War memorial plates from the Franklin Mint’

‘Or some Black Hills gold jewellry’, my mother would say.

And the Baptist minister would open his bible and begin the sermon.

‘A bible!’, Weasel would scream, his eyes begining to pour smoke.

“Of course’, my mother would say, ‘a Baptist funeral is what she would have wanted. She was always such a devout christian.’

Weasel would hold his burning eyes into his head, ‘I’ll perform the service - she was a Satanist after all.’

Richard the Previous would shake his head, ‘No she wasn’t, she thought Satanism was kind of silly. She just dated Satanists because they were good in bed.’

‘I think we should have Scotty play the bagpipes’, Tami would say, ‘then shoot her out into space.’

‘No no’ says Beth, ‘a pagan funeral is what she’d want. I’ll perform the ceremony’.

‘No, she practiced voodoo’, Heather would say from a shroud of fragrant smoke, ‘we need to call in a … a….’, then Heather would forget what she’s going to say and take another toke.

‘Could I have some of that?’, Beth would ask, ‘you know, Che’s aura would always turn white when she smoked pot’.

‘No’, Richard the Previous would say, ‘Che’s aura would always turn white when YOU smoked pot.’

‘She was a Buddhist’, Joanne would say, ‘and she wouldn’t approve of all these drugs’.

‘Oh please’, Richard the Previous would say, ‘she’s probably pissed off that she’s dead and missing out on all these drugs.’

‘I believe she was gnostic’, Adam would say, ‘we’ll need a gnostic priest.’

‘I can perform any funereal ceremony’, Ruby would say, ‘I’m a rabbi, a catholic priest, a dianic priestess, a voodoo mambo, a siberian shaman, a buddhist monk and a native american medicine womyn.’

‘Religion is the opiate of the masses’, Bahamas Rich would say.

‘Thats why Che loved it so much’, Richard the Previous would say.

‘Whats that red light, hovering over her coffin?’, J the Only would ask.

‘Hell-fire!’, Weasel would sound triumphant.

‘No, I think its Samuel’, Tami would say, ‘her ghostly muse’.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts’, Bahamas Rich would say, ‘I wouldn’t believe in ghosts if one walked up and slapped me in the face.’

And the red light would walk up and slap him in the face.

‘See?’, Bahamas Rich would say.

‘And who are all those tasty-looking women sitting in the corner’, Bas would ask.

‘They’re Che’s ex-girlfriends’, Richard the Previous would reply, ‘they’ve come to dance on her grave.’

And Richard the Previous would raise his hand to wave at a short, brown-haired dyke with glasses, ‘Hello Leigh!’

‘She was a brutal woman’, Leigh would say, putting on her dancing shoes ‘who dug up graves. Now we’re digging her grave.’

‘And who are all those skinny men who look like they have a little something wrong with them?’, Adam would ask.

‘Oh, those are the ex-boyfriends’, Richard the Previous would answer, ‘I expect they’re wanting to dance on her grave as well.’

‘Well if they want to defile her corpse, they’ll have to stand in line’, Weasel would say.

And Richard the Previous would wave at a skinny guy wearing a nun’s habit, ‘Hi Richie!’, he would yell.

‘Shall we get on with it?’ the baptist minister would ask, ‘I have a 2 o’clock wedding.’

‘Hey Ross’, Bahamas Rich would yell, ‘look at how big this coffin is. I’ll bet we could set up the Necromunda scenery and play one last game on her casket.’

‘Dolls!’, Ross would exclaim.

‘Oh no, not dolls!’, Adam would cry, ’she hated the dolls!”

“She loved the dolls’, Ross would say, setting up the scenery on the coffin-top.

‘Yes this is the perfect send-off’, Bahamas Rich would say, fondling his favourite metal model - the one with the flight-pack and the stasis-grenades and the triple plas-gun, ‘better than any religious ceremony.’

‘Can I play?’, Steve would ask, ‘its too bad Anthony isn’t here’.

‘Well you know’, says Richard the Previous, settling onto a pew and opening his comic book, ‘prairie woman wouldn’t let him.’

‘Lovely woman’, Adam would say, ‘just lovely’.

‘How long is this going to take?’, Richard the Previous would ask, ‘can I get that hamburger now?’

——————–

I just thought that since this was one of R the P’s favourite tales, that it bore repeating. It was originally published on the old Shattered Prayer.

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