He remembered how death had settled so softly onto her body, like the relaxation of a deep breath. He had killed her. It was the only thing he knew for certain. Other than that, nothing seemed real as he nervously crouched in a patch of tall, dry grass. It rustled noisily every time he shifted. He wouldn’t be able to stay long.
It seemed to take forever for the slowly moving pickup truck to pass in front of his hiding place. He could see her framed picture on top of the white and gold casket that sat on the back of the truck. He felt his throat constrict at the sight of her in the photo, alive and smiling. A tinny death song played from a portable stereo. Her friend, Nana, wept as she led the procession behind the truck; like all of the girls in the procession, she wore a long, white skirt, a flowing white blouse and a white sash across her heart.
The southeast Asian sun bore down on him; its intensity threatened to drive him out of hiding, but he didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to leave her again. Sweat trickled down his back. The rusty pickup truck turned into the temple grounds followed by the long line of mourning friends. No family members were there.
Once all of the mourners had safely passed he skulked through the grass, his belly scraping across the hard, thirsty ground, to a thicket of banana trees with wide leaves. From here, he watched as they lifted the coffin onto an enormous pile of broken sticks and branches. He couldn’t breathe as Nana lit the match and dropped it onto the pyre. He knelt, hand frozen to his mouth, tears the only thing moving as he watched her body burn. The air became thick with the smoke of death.
Her death.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
YOU ARE READING
Sneak peek at The Merit Birds!
Teen FictionBOOK DESCRIPTION (to be released May 2015): Eighteen-year-old Cam Scott is angry. He’s angry about his absent dad, he’s angry about being angry, and he’s angry that he has had to give up his Ottawa basketball team to follow his mom to her new job in...
