The funeral wake

I was transfixed by the dog’s onyx eyes. Somewhere buried deep behind those eyes was Agatha’s secret. It had to be. It was her dog after all.  And with that secret, the answers what happened with the love of my life.

Deep down inside me, I was certain Agatha was different. Tougher, more resilient, better than us all.  She was the one who  symbolised a new kind of faith, one hard to grasp in these times.

The times after the Fissure.

That’s why her presence was cherished and why people flocked to her. After all, she was the beacon which organised the support circles, she pulled the drowning ones back onto the surface, she took the near-suicide calls in the middle of the night. And nurtured them back to life. Ignited hope in us all. Repeated endlessly to us, we were repsonsible for our reality, despite the overwhelming facts of the Fissure.

She gave us a sense of momentum, and it spoke that however bad things got inside our souls, there was still a reason to push forward. To go on with life as usual. To have the courage to walk out the damned dog. To have that high cholerstorole barbecue and enjoy the hell out of it. To drink oneself into stupor.

Just so you could, at least for a moment, pretend it was all real. What a damned lie.

My hand cuddled Agatha’s dog’s ear. I glanced up and reminded myself where I was.

A funeral wake at my house.

I eyed the black draped guests as they slid listlessly around me. Their silence filled with reverence, just as one would expect at such an occasion. Yet this silence had an odd quality to itself. It drilled itself into my ear drums, punctured them with a painful, dull absence of sound.

Why was I sitting here, cuddling Agatha’s dog, shaking all these strangers’ hands, at Agatha’s own funeral? Why was I pretending her final check out was an accident? Was it just that? Or was it her last line of protest against the undeniable facts which the Fissure presented?

Why did she fail to give me an advanced warning? If she owed me anything for the twenty years together, wouldn’t that be it? A few words, a talk, even a hysterical cry for help. I would gladly embrace all of it.

Few simple words that she would vanish for good, from my life, from her family’s life, from the people that loved her. From the kid we never had, but which I longed for so deeply.

At least my dog was real

-You ok Jon?, one of the guests whispered to me and woke me up from my thoughts. I glanced up at her, but couldn’t remember her name. Someone on Agatha’s side, a dear and friendly face.

-As good as can be expected.

-Hang in there, huh…, she clapped my shoulder, gently enough to show her compassion, and was about to leave.

-Excuse me, I stopped her mid-stride.

-Yeah?

-Did Agatha talk about her dog? Did she…? You know..? her dog?, I stuttered out.

-What do you mean?

I was about to launch into an explanation but then I realized I was being downright silly. I shook my head and waved it away.  The woman nodded, sent me a reassuring smile, then left.

But I felt everything wrench inside me, about to spew up a volcano. My mind was thrown back to the moment when Agatha had sat with her dog in the kitchen. She had smiled into those beady eyes. She had whispered, he was real, he was real.

Over and over again.

Then her face had glowed with happinness. If there ever was a disconcerting sign, maybe that had been it. Had she been hanging onto the semblance of her sanity? Had she hidden her own breakage so deeply, that no one saw it festering away inside her. Had the undeniable facts about our reality reached her mind? Blinded her will to go on.

Had the dog’s eyes, his carefree nature, and ignorance of it all, been her only rescue line?

Or was this all in my head? And her talking to the dog, repeating he was real, this had just been a simple and playful moment in her life?

The dog nudged himself into me, and I felt an ache shoot through my body. Ever since Agatha made her exit, he wouldn’t leave me, even for a split second. And when I stared into his eyes, I could almost feel them begging me. Clinging to me, needy, hurt, terrified, and outright demanding that I wouldn’t abandon him, the way his mistress did so abruptly.

No. This was not in my head. These beady eyes held the truth to my Agatha. And given time, diligence and empathy, I would comprehend.

To learn what happened during the Fissure, and the secrets behind Agatha’s choice, read the second part of “Agatha Unravelled”. Storygeist next week.

If you are interested in the current technological events that inspired this short story, please read my article “Venture me out of the Matrix”