a polaroid picture

The room settled in around me. Clumsy cousins of other cousins sat side by side on cheap wooden pews, dressed in Sunday’s best for a Saturday evening wake.

Aunts with faces longer than their years cried and talked religion and swapped recipes.

I stood up. Forced myself down the rows.

A woman upholstered in her living room carpet fluttered by the coffin, pointed a Polaroid and clicked.

The picture slid out. Green and filmy. A dead man’s face.

I moved to the back of the parlor where mourners queued by a candled podium. To put pen to paper. To sign and say that they were there so they wouldn’t have to be anymore.

I waited, then drew my name.