cent.

he stands next to his mother, with one hand in his pocket and the other dangling limply from the heavy canopy that is the length of his shoulders. carefully, he rolls two coins around in his pocket without letting them touch one another. every now and then, they clink together ever so gently, sending a chilling current of awareness through his spine. funerals are uninteresting affairs when one is a child. yet, they are an important. children understand the most important aspect of it, that even parents sometimes do not. it is the one time new life is presented with an opportunity to understand the complicities of the time-honoured tradition that is death, and yet see it with a clarity that only the innocence of youth can provide. from the very moment a child asks for his deceased relative and receives a veiled response as to his whereabouts, a process begins. years later, the child will begin to grapple with the concepts of life, death and fairness. for now, however, death is an event - like having to bathe, or attending a prayer gathering. unpleasant, but necessary for reasons he cannot yet fathom.

seventy-three people, several of whom are weeping quietly amidst the sea of monochrome, are gathered around a hole and a wooden box, listening to an elderly gent recite a tale about a kind man who, rather unfortunately, was unable to be in attendance today to hear all these wonderful things about himself. the boy wonders what the man has done to deserve all this praise. he takes his hand out of his pockets and starts to tug at his shirt lapel. he itches all over from the linen suit he had grown out of two summers ago. just then, he notices the shock of bright red roses strewn over the wooden box. they lie there, unclaimed, forgotten, irrelevant. they glow against the lacquered surface, giving off a faint aura that permeates through the air. the boy inhales deeply but smells nothing, save for the sickly scent of his mother's perfume. trying to imagine the scent of a rose, he shuts his eyes tightly, holds his breath and succeeds only in picturing his baby brother in his arms; soft, red and moist like the breaking of dew drops on one's finger. he leans in closer to his brother's napkin-wrapped head, and takes in the olfactoral potpourri of johnson and johnson's baby soap, fab laundry detergent and the natural sweetness of a newborn child. upon opening his eyes, he realises that he is no longer within the congregation, but an entire step out in front of it. he feels alone all of a sudden, and in his sudden awkwardness, he inches backwards until he can see his mother's entire form out of the corner of his eye.

he will cry later on that morning, more out of concern for his mother having broken down all of a sudden than for anything else. in the line that filters past the wooden box, he will realise that his
grandfather is lying inside that box, and that he won't be waking up today nor tomorrow nor the day after that. he cries again because he does not understand something so simple; something that everyone else seems to get. tears stream down his face as he wrestles with the unfairness of this. confusing this for grievance, his grandmother kneels beside him and softly tells him that her husband has gone to stay with the lord. he nods, unsure of what she means and then he looks over her shoulder at his mother. he wipes away tears with the sleeve of his blazer. one day he will understand why people take comfort in flowers. one day he will recognise the scent of funeral bouquets. one day he will understand the true cost of death. but those things will have to wait. for now, as he walks towards the black limousine parked at the gates holding his mother's hand, he lets his other hand slip back into his trouser pocket and with its fingertips, he gently caresses the solitary rose petal that now rests there in place of the coins.