The Spectator

Celia clicked off the TV. The memorial service had been an abomination of art direction, meant to confer the idea that the mourners felt a connection to the corpse. She was certain most hadn’t known him, with their choreographed crying fits that only seemed to take place when a camera was nearby.

“So much for that,” she said taking another drag off her cigarette. “Top of the world Monday and dead on Friday.”

She looked at her watch and then out the window. Time had rushed through the rain washed streets of the boulevard leaving sparkling trails of glistening garbage, which soaked pedestrians hopped over to avoid homeless vets.

“Bet none of them realizes how good they’ve got it. That fool on the TV would give anything to be alive enough to be that wet and miserable.”

She stood watching them until the rain stopped and the hide-and-seek sun bashfully appeared from behind a cloud illuming the city from darkness to shadows.

“What next?” she asked sinking back down onto the couch. She wondered if the coverage of the services was finally over and the TV stations would return to the hours of mental mush meant to distract the bored from their boredom.

No such luck.

On every channel she clicked there was another moderator discussing the importance of the corpse from birth til death and then back again. Other channels carried rebroadcasts of the festivities filled with even more extreme close-ups of botoxed babes who hadn’t seen their twenties in thirty years but clung to the idea of everlasting youth.

“You probably think I’m jealous. What a joke. You’re nothing but a bunch of rotting old broads with big pocketbooks and nothing else better to do,” she yelled at the screen.

The hype hadn’t died down by the time night returned the noonday shadows to blackness. Celia continued to watch the news, now transfixed by lurid details of fatal habits fed to her in sound bytes by those who had known the former demigod. Apparently, he’d had a penchant for headboards, bondage and recreations of hell in torch lined dungeons. After he’d become famous, he’d dismissed all of his family and friends and replaced them with those he’d hired to execute his wishes.

Celia’s stomach howled like a lonely wolf through the slush of perversity blaring back at her from the TV screen. She’d forgotten to eat and it was past midnight. Her legs ached as she stood up for the first time in hours.

“I’m so grateful I never bought into such folly,” she said shuffling into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. “What a wasted life...”

After brushing her teeth, she looked into the mirror. The ceiling light cast a shadow across her face that caused her cheekbones to look pronounced. She struck model poses until she noticed that no matter what she did, her eyes looked empty, almost soulless.

“Time for bed, I guess,” she said still haunted by her reflection. The words, “you can’t take it with you. You can’t take it with you,” echoed off the walls as she pulled back her sheets.

Then she lay down on her bed unaware that this could have been her last day because tomorrow wasn’t a guarantee, while taxicabs and sirens echoed in the distance.