autumn

 

For some, autumn is the best season of the year. They seem to love the shortening days, darkness creeping in like heavy curtains drawing across the shrinking vista of the year. The changing colours in the trees enthrall them as they step out for walks, fallen leaves clinging to their shoes, the green of life alters to deep shades of red and soft yellow before succumbing to crispy brown and disappearing completely into the rapidly cooling soil.

 

I’ve often thought that these people might actually have a fixation on endings, do they enjoy watching things die? Surely they cannot be the nurturing types, like those of us who choose spring as their favourite season, who delight in opening buds, new life, longer days and the warming of both soil and heart.

 

One such person who adored the autumn season was Herbican Coldraw. He spent all of the summer indoors, complaining about the glaring sun, the noisy birds, giggling children and hot sticky air. Herbican was prone to profuse sweating and his temper especially was predisposed to volatility when the mercury rose. Only his head left the front door briefly as he opened it for the Tesco delivery driver, keeping his feet on the inside of the threshold as they exchanged grocery bags.

 

It didn’t matter because Herbican could earn almost all of the income he needed for the year during the other three seasons. It was a pity for those who needed his services in summer but lucky since, for the most part, folks were healthy during the hottest season and those that were not, willed themselves to remain alive until Herbican was back in service.

 

For Herbican was a professional mourner, and also an unprofessional mourner but we’ll come to that later. 

 

For a flat fee of three hundred pounds, he would arrive pale-faced and early at the funeral of any person or pet, either booked to be there in advance by themselves or any loved or unloved ones who happened to attend and desire his services.

 

Herbican loved his job, indeed it was really the only career which was open to him due to his strange demeanor, unusual genetic facial features and, most of all, his extraordinary talent for weeping. 

 

It was often the vainest and the least loved who booked his services, well in advance of their demise, settling the fee so that they had full peace of mind that there would be at least one sad person at their funeral. Not that Herbican was sad in the traditional sense; he wasn’t really capable of any deep seated emotions, except anger and perhaps jealousy which he’d always been prone to since being a very young child.

 

His emotions reclined in a shallow seat, occasionally slipping off and waking him with a jolt to remind him to grimace and produce another tear. Smiling was something he struggled with, he could manage a slight, monastic upturn at the edges of his mouth but not the accompanying twinkle of the eyes. Herbican’s eyes were the dull, grey colour of a cold fish, laid out on the fish counter in Morrisons.

 

It was troubling to him that he had recently had to raise his fee from two hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds. This was due, in part to rising fuel costs but there was also the matter of a shift in tastes from the traditional black clothing to brighter shades and even patterns. Herbican didn’t suit colour, he hated it, his tears were genuine when neon shades were the funereal dress-code.

 

The autumn season was when he felt most like himself. The return to work got him back into a routine, the crisper air suited his complexion, his sweating was mostly in check and he simply loved driving around to his various gigs. He could observe the fading of the leaves as they simply gave up for the year, detaching themselves slowly from the oxygen supply of the tree, their verdant green shades declining and they prepared to fall and disappear forever.

 

It was a stroke of luck that their burial was all taken care of by the worms. The whole thing was perfectly orchestrated by nature itself. The early arrival of nightfall was often a shock to young animals, stepping out in the rush hour of evening. Herbican considered himself lucky to observe roadkill on edges of the highways and byways as he drove along in his Nissan Juke, listening to Carlo Gesualdo and Rammstein

 

In autumn he could relax a little before the crazy season began. Cold temperatures came with a sharpening increase in viruses, coughs and colds, flu and pneumonia, it was all around and especially lethal for the elderly. Winter was full on, he couldn’t really enjoy Christmas, knowing that there would be a backlog to clear after the season of jollity was over.

 

Herbican had been blessed with a very firm grip and his hands came in very useful just after the service when those who had been brutally struck down with grief could be momentarily snapped out of it by Herbican’s violent grip strength. His cod fish eyes would briefly scan the mourners, hunting down hysterical ladies, once identified, he would stride up to them, fixing them with his finely tuned grimace of sympathy. 

 

Once in touching distance he would stretch out his hand, letting it fall gently upon the wrist of the mourner and then, without warning, apply a grip with a two hundred pound strength (Belgian Malinois canine equivalent for reference). At which point the mourner would immediately snap out of their hysteria and emit an audible gasp. Herbican would then slowly release his grip, maintaining eye contact while uttering the words, ‘I am so so sorry,’ with a gentle shake of the head before disappearing once again into the congregation.

 

His presence was often questioned by the genuine mourners who would huddle together and whisper to each other, ‘Who is that man over there, who is he? I’ve never seen him before.’

 

Herbican was well used to the suspicion. His bristly ears were keenly tuned to the gossipers and questioners and his response was a gentle nod of the head and a maintaining expression of sadness and piety. This demeanor of sombre serenity was occasionally broken by a wail of hysteria, quickly stifled inside a chequered handkerchief, with a quick shake of the head and look of disbelief aimed at the heavens.

 

Sometimes, busy bodies which were not consumed by grief but to support those who were, would take it upon themselves to question the presence of Herbican. It was audacious and somewhat difficult to formulate a sensitive arrangement of the wording but it didn’t stop some. ‘Excuse me,’ they would say, ‘I just thought I would ask what was your relationship with the deceased?’

 

Herbican had a choice of responses in his repertoire and they were usually pre-arranged by the individual, alive or dead, who made the booking. His favourite responses were the cryptic ones, ‘Oh well we were very very close once, many decades ago,’ or ‘I looked after her after the accident, we shared an unbreakable bond but sadly lost contact in recent years.’ A look of shock and puzzlement usually followed but further questioning is always inappropriate at funerals.

 

It was during the end of spring that Herbican usually had a bit of a break, more time on his hands. He used this time as an opportunity to brush up on his mourning skills. He’d often take a holiday in Woolacombe or Barmouth and between visits to National Trust properties, he would hang around crematoriums. He didn’t usually have to wait for long.

 

There he would hone his skills, tagging along, blinking slowly and shaking his head. Lifting a clenched fist up to his mouth with an accompanying sharp intake of breath. ‘Terrible isn’t it,’ he would mutter to one of the other mourners, the sort that stands alone and awkward in the background, perhaps a colleague or gym buddy.

 

‘He would have loved this,’ that was one of the new phrases he was trialling. It seemed to go down well, although some people were confused by it and simply stared at him so he had to follow up with, ‘oh I just mean all his friends in the one place that’s all,’ to which they would nod and agree.

 

It was lucky that lunch was often included. Herbican would simply follow the mourners in their vehicles, sometimes to a lovely hotel, sometimes to a house where he would limit his refreshments to a glass of sherry and a bite-sized millionaires shortbread before making his excuses.

 

The training season didn’t last long though. Spring could be hot and Herbican hated the heat. No, autumn was his favorite season, a time of fading, relishing in endings and hunkering down for a long sleep.