They Say...

The dark haired boy approaches them where they lie together, side by side.

For a moment, he can’t believe what he sees is real. It wasn’t because it was impossible, but because he had never imagined that two of the people who had almost become his extended family would have their lives ended in this way.

Next to them, nine people stand grouped around one other person, shielding his body from the anxious gazes of expectant crowds. Standing alone at the couple’s feet, he remains their only present mourner, the lone attendant at their funeral. Everyone here who knew them was elsewhere occupied.

He thinks of the two people that they’ve both left behind; her mother and their infant son. His godson. The child who would only have spent less than a month with his mummy and daddy before they were snatched away, trying to make his world better. He would never again be sung to sleep with his mother’s lullaby, never again be held in his father’s protective arms. And in that moment, he makes one promise to himself, one that he swore he would never break; that he would raise his godson as a father in a tribute to both of them.

The flask, cold as though containing dry ice, slips slightly from his grasp, but he catches it, before kneeling down on one knee so as to fit in the enclosed space between their bodies. He did not want to move them from where they were; they looked peaceful and as though sleeping, just spending one more night together underneath the stars.

Something troubled him about how they lay. Though close, they still somehow seemed separate. He takes one hand in each of his, each now starting to shed the warmth of their lives to be replaced with the pale tones of death. Fumbling with their fingers, his own hands wrecked with tremors, he joins them together.

Together in life; together in death.