They died instantly.
Thatīs what they told her anyway. They didnīt see the semi-truck coming head on, couldnīt imagine the driver was asleep at the wheel. It all happened too quickly for thought.
She cried, of course. They were her parents, and she loved them. Loved them still, after ten years of separation. She flew down to Mississippi for the funeral. Closed casket. No one stood by her side as she idly listened to the drone of the ministerīs voice. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”
The words spilled into her. How many times had she heard them? Too many. “My cup runneth over,” she mumbled, and she tasted the bitterness in her salty tears.
Her home was gone. The house stood – empty. All that remained was that building, their things. Her things, in her old room, kept just as she left it when she ran away from them. That they didnīt forget her made it all the more painful. She had a home now, she thought. Made up, not of ghosts and shadows and dust, but of real friends and people she loved. But the old home, the first and most important, that was gone. It had been gone for years, though sheīd held onto the possibilities. Those were gone too, now. Dead and soon to be buried.
No one had asked her if she wanted to speak at the funeral. Theyīd all looked at her only from the periphery, as if looking at her straight on was a great sin. She could see on their faces that they didnīt understand why she was there – why now, after so many years, sheīd bothered to return. Her aunt – her motherīs sister – had read from a crumpled piece of paper, sounding just like a ten-year-old reading from a school text. Her voice was dry and monotonous and her tears, when they came, sounded prefabricated. It was a crime, for anything to sound that way.
She was gone before they were sealed up for eternity. The first cab she could find drove her to the airport. Inside, sitting on one of the cold, hard, plastic seats she tried to relieve herself of the knot forming in her throat – the choking sensation that promised to crush the breath out of her. But she couldnīt cry. Her eyes were dry and red – they were barren fields, sown too much and too often and bereft of any more life.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is for Khaki's "opening sequence" challenge. P.S. At least it's short. It could have been much worse.