Two Funerals

The boy trudged sullenly along the gravel path in his uncomfortable new shoes. The day was grey and damp and it smelled of earth and smoke and rain. Rows and rows of granite and marble passed on the left and the right, uncounted. Small groups of people came and went, sombre and downcast, faces studying the ground. Nobody smiled.
At sixteen years old, he was small for his age and could have easily passed for twelve or thirteen. He was an unkempt teenager with oily skin and lank, greasy, too-long hair. Large dark eyes looked out from behind thick cumbersome glasses. He had wanted the square ones, with the black frames, but they were too expensive, so he wore these while he saved up for a new pair. His shoes were brand new black leather, bought especially for today, and they pinched and squeezed with every step. He wore a pair of plain black trousers, creased in the front, and a black shirt that looked too big on his scrawny, sloped shoulders. His coat was the same one he wore to school. Beside him his father walked; an older, fatter, broader version of himself, with less hair and harder skin. He wore a suit with a white shirt and a black tie, and a long frock-coat with cat hair on it. They wore the same glasses. The boy’s mother was some way behind, talking quietly and carefully to her sister.
At a small headstone, a man and a child stood. The little girl, no more than six or seven, clutched a small bunch of bright purple flowers. She put them on the grave uncertainly and stood looking at the rectangle of earth for a moment. She turned, and buried her face in her father’s middle, wrapping her arms around him like a belt. He picked her up and stroked the back of her head as he swayed gently from side to side. His lips pursed in a soothing exhalation, as old as the earth. The boy walked on.
A mound of reddish brown earth lay beside the open grave. People gathered around on the damp grass unsure of what to say or do and so just stood in silence, hands clasped in front, heads bowed. The priest, draped in robes of white and green said his words in English and in Latin, and shook his holy water on the coffin. “Amen”, the crowd said, and blessed themselves in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost. The box was lowered slowly into the dark, and people began to move off, commenting on how sad it was, and what a lovely service.
They boy stood with his father at the side of the grave, reading the headstone. “Whose grave is this?” he asked.
“Your great grandparent's”
“So, Ger's parents?”
“Yes.”
“They bury more than one person in a grave like that?”
“Yes.”
“Did he want to be buried with his parents?”
“I don't know. Your mother took care of it.”
“It's a bit...strange, isn't it?”
“I suppose they didn't want him to be alone”
They stood in silence for a moment as the boy considered for the first time how he wanted to be disposed of. “I'd like to be cremated I think.”
“It seems a bit more dignified doesn't it?”
The boy replied with silence. “Come on”, said the boy’s father as he turned his back on the grave and began to walk across the grass. The boy followed quietly and contemplatively as they crunched down the gravel path again. Ahead of them the boy’s mother walked alone, slow and weary. They caught up and the boy noticed his mother’s red, watery eyes. The three walked. The boy’s father slipped his hand into his mothers and squeezed gently. She squeezed back and sighed a deep ragged sigh, and they kept walking, graves passing to the right and the left. “Poor Ger”, she said. “It was a lovely service though.” She sniffed, and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Yes, it was.”