Auden

My father was dead.

Stroke, they said. Asleep in bed with a lover he never spoke of, in the golden part of his life. Content, business thriving, and this mindless, cold thing leapt up and took the very life from his body in a single touch.

Four days. Four long days, and in my heart I still couldn't believe it. For one...well, he was gone. His body, long and lean in the casket, wearing his best suit and its almost as if I expected him to just sit up and laugh at everyone like it was a grand joke. Like he were staging all of this as a business venture.

But no. His makeup was caked too thick. In the wild, helpless part of my mind, I knew he'd never have approved.

My father was dead.

The priest spoke from the Word. Business partners said a word or two; acquaintances spoke their sorrow. World leaders offered their hollow condolences, the vultures circling overhead to nit pick at my family business. Mine.

Bruce sat to my left. Holding my hand, squeezing it once in a while and offering those chocolate eyes every time I looked to him.

Clark to my right. My humble friend and lover, tear marks on his face...hurting for a man who'd never brought anything to his family but pain.

The best part was when Brian Adams sang a song that even pulled a tear from me, and I'm a cold-blooded bastard.

I spoke as well. Stood up there at a podium, with his cold corpse beneath me, and tried to speak words of love that barely wanted to come out of me. Wanted to say that I was glad he was gone, that he'd paid the world a favor and good riddance. But even then, I couldn't. Not while he lay on his eternal bed, not when so many business people were here to listen. Couldn't say what I wanted, for the sake of what was left of my business. Just spoke hollowly about my childhood and about the father I would always know. The true man inside the selfish, arrogant shell I could barely remember as I sat up there and tried to sell my bucket of shit.

Had to. I was his son.

Sat down like a hazed dream beside Clark and Bruce. Couldn't even meet their eyes.

Watched as more people spoke in a bubble. Everything was muffled and strange...my eyes could barely focus on anything. Just sit there. Stare. His makeup really was too thick. The flowers were ugly. The props along the podium...even the runner down the central aisle was hideous. Whoever had put together this entire fiasco would be fired as soon as I could manage it.

Medium build. Blond hair...a scratchy goatee along a slim jaw. Elegant black suit, eyes rimmed in red. My father's assistant. Dominic. Of course the little lap dog would have to speak. Now that he was being awarded half of the money and property in the will. Christ. I would love to see how he managed to coerce my father into it. How the weasel had gotten himself in the will.

"Stop all the clocks. Cut off the telephone." His voice was scratched...raw, as if he'd been crying for days. His Irish accent came out with the words, and with his soft lilt, my world sharpened to startling clarity. Needed to see this. Needed to watch this...this act.

"Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone. Silence the pianos, and with muffled drum bring out the coffin. Let the mourners come." He looked down. "Let the aero planes circle all morning overhead, scribbling in the sky the message, "He is dead.". Put great bows 'round the white necks of the public doves. Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves."

He stopped, swallowed. Regaining his composure as best he could. "He was my north, my south, my east and west. My working week, and my Sunday rest. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song. I thought that love would last forever.

"I was wrong."

His words cracked, and suddenly...no. God. He...it couldn't have been him. It couldn't have. The priest watched on in anger, as if he couldn't believe this man was standing at his podium speaking words that put him against God.

"The stars are not wanted now, put out every one. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun. Put away the ocean, and sweep up the wood...for nothing now can come to any good."

Another pause, and I watched him press his lips together as his chin quivered hard. As his filled eyes overflowed. "Goodbye, beloved. I will miss you, more then you will ever know. You were more to me then I could ever express here, among these people who never knew. Who will never know. That is what breaks my heart, my lovely. This is why I have not slept, nor eaten, nor spoken to anyone since the moment I opened my eyes and knew you had left me for the next world. This ache, this agonized pain sits in my chest and presses against my heart, because I know we will never have the children we so dreamed of having. We will never live in France in the ch'teau by the lake...you will never tell your son how much you loved him and how proud of him you were."

Something gave way inside of me. Something hard and painful, and very suddenly I knew I was sobbing and I couldn't stop. Wouldn't. Felt Clarks arms...heard the hushed sounds of the people whispering what they saw. Bald pariah, sobbing for his father. Such a little boy. Such a child.

"Brilliant, and innocent and beautiful. You were graceful, elegant; my lovely beyond every imagining. You were an amazement in my eyes every morning when we awoke, and my blessing every night when we slept in one another's arms. I miss it already. Sleeping seems strange now, as if theirs something distinctly wrong. I'll never feel your arms again...your eyes will never look at me in joy or sadness or triumph or heartbreak ever again. You will wont speak to me in hushed tones, never again touch my hair. I will never see you throw your head back and laugh again. And I know, someday, your image will fade. Your face will grow blurred in my memory; the dark chocolate brown of your eyes will recede until I cannot recall the exact hue. I will forget the exact way you called me Jiminy, and I will loose to the expanse of my mind the way you touched my face whenever you were overjoyed.

"I ache to take it all down; to rush and write every single thing about you. From the way we fit together, to the smile that lit your face whenever we ate French fries in bed. Even then, though, it seems so fruitless. How can pen and paper ever replicate how you looked when you were lost in pleasure? How can it put down, detail for detail, the way your mouth curved whenever you looked at me? How can it ever duplicate texture of your skin, or the goose bumps I could raise simply by looking at it?"

If I'd turned and looked, I would have seen the entire church crying.

"Standing here I know there will never be another one for me, just as I knew it when I awoke to find you gone. You were the first, the last, and the only. You carved me into the man I am today, took the boy out of the man and the spineless out of the strong. I can only hope that someday you can forgive me for crying now, for showing weakness in front of all these people, for vowing a love no one ever knew about, now when its too late.

"You did not live in vain, lovely one. You were hard, ruthless, kind. Conceited, arrogant, amusing. Beautiful, charming, egotistical. You lacked and you overflowed, you gave and you took. You were human. You were treasured; you were adored. And above everything else, above every imaginable emotion, beyond every earthly thought, you were loved. I will love you until the day God comes to claim me, and even then when He asks me what I did with my life, I will tell Him only that I loved. And was loved in return. 'O no, it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wan'dring bark, who's worth's unknown.' "

There was nothing left to say.