Funereal #4

Ahem.

I'm lying in a donated coffin. There's hardly anyone else who is there in the small viewing gallery, again donated. The donors are the church that I have spent most of my adult life in since I was saved. Many know of me, but hardly anyone knows me, because I had never really tried to reach out---the pastor once told me how, and it was easy, but I never knew what to do after that because there was always a wall of intellectual nonsense that separated me from them. God knows I could care and love, but not in the way that any normal person would recognise---maybe it was better called service than love. I was always at church, serving quietly in a not-so-quiet way as a musician in the music ministry. But no one ever knew me, and perhaps even myself as well. The pastor is there, maybe out of obligation, maybe out of pity. He says a few unimportant words, and I get cremated. And that was all there was with my earthly body.

An Early Will

In the event that I am dead, here is roughly what I would like done:

1. Cremate and scatter my cremains into the waters off the Singapore coast---ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
2. All physical objects I possess, burn in a great bonfire as they are no longer of any value to anyone.
3. The money that I might have in my accounts, let them lie in oblivion in where they are stored in.

Yes, I'm well aware how this post is probably triggering all kinds of red flags. No, I am not about to off myself---perish the thought. Considering that one of the most likely futures that I am going to end up in is one where I live alone, I felt it necessary to start leaving some ``future instructions'' in case the inevitable does happen and I did not have the opportunity to write a ``proper'' will.

Naturally what is written here can and will change in the event that circumstances change. Now that I am well on my way through the middle age phase, I feel less invincible as compared to being in my teenage years, and it will progressively be worse as time goes on.

That's all I will write here for now, till the next update.

Funereal #3

Ahem.

In a dark corner of the room, I lay there in a cheap plywood coffin that some kind soul finally decided to donate. It was a strange place to be, the hidden corner of the crematorium where the destitute dead were temporarily kept before being cremated during the off-hours of the crematorium by the State in one last act of kindness to its citizens. But I suppose it cannot be helped, considering everything. While I was still alive, it was always an uphill battle trying to be what I was to be. But that incident not too long ago, it just took away all that I had. My name, my reputation, my money, my family, my life. But it is all moot now; I am already dead, and just waiting to be finally returned, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Funereal #2

Ahem.

I lay there within my half-opened casket, serene as a man can ever be. Right there next to my glass-covered top, my aged but still lovely wife weeps to herself. Oh the sorrow, the pain! Yet she maintains her dignified poise, melancholy notwithstanding. Comforting her with an arm around her shoulders is my eldest daughter, lovely, tall and dressed in the deepest black that one could think of. She has always been my pride and joy, for being first-born meant she was the child I held the longest and watched over the most. Her husband stands quietly near her---it is not his place to be in deep mourning; his role is mostly supportive. My other daughter flanks my wife on the other side, silently sobbing to herself; she's not as tough as my eldest, but still she has her strong moments, but now was not the time. My son stands in front of my portrait, his head bowed, face unsmiling, tearless, serious---I have brought him up well, it seems, for stoicness was one thing I thought every male should have about him, to never look emotional in front of others other than those close by.

The monk finally finishes the prayer that he was chanting to free my soul of my earthly shackles. Already I feel a little lighter. My wife's weeping intensified, and if I weren't already dead I would have leapt up to her and hold her and tell her once more how much I love her and don't really want to go. With a solemn bow, the monk steps away from his position and the pallbearers stepped up. The lead pallbearer gave a final bow to me, before closing the lid of my coffin. With a silent one-two, the pallbearers lift my casket upon their shoulders and walked solemnly into the antechamber behind the curtains. The small cortege behind me filed out of the main area and shuffled up to the viewing room on the second floor.

There, they got to see the funeral home workers lift up my casket and slowly bring it to the conveyor belt that fed into the gaping door of the furnace of the crematorium. My wife, stoically strong thus far, finally wails audibly, dignity be damned, while my daughters try their best to comfort her while stifling their own tears with little effect. Confronted with the final inevitability, even my son's eyes were tearing.

The funereal home workers gently pushed my casket onto the conveyer belt and stepped back, their heads bowed in respect. My casket rolls gently down the conveyer into the furnace, where I get consumed by the flames for the last time. While I know that I am dead, I leave knowing that my son and daughters will carry on with life, and that they will take care of my lover till the day comes that she joins me for true eternal bliss.

Funereal #1

I'm starting a new series of articles labelled ``funereal''. It sounds morbid, but really it is one of those ``start with the end goal in sight'' kind of things. Each time an article is tagged with the ``funereal'' tag, it represents my vision of what happens at my funeral at that point in time. Might prove to be an interesting psychological experiment.

Ahem.

There was muted silence all about as the candles flickered in the night time breeze. I lie dead in that coffin out in the centre of the funeral parlour, surrounded by strangers. It's a hush-hush affair; there was no priest nor reverend nor any religious figure officiating the austere setting---I had lived my life with a much stronger belief towards empirical science than religious followings. Of course there would be no one else there that I know; I have broke contact with most of them a long long time ago, once they all started to get married and have children and thus need to care more about their families than some crockety old man who was still clinging on to the old ideals of geekiness.

The grandfather clock chimed and there was a rustling sound as the pallbearers shifted my coffin towards the cremation chamber. The strangers present muttered their own words of farewell to a man they hardly knew as my coffin enters the hop into the chamber itself. Within a few short minutes, I made it into the furnace and was cremated into an urnful of fine white ash.

As per my instructions, they took my urn of ashes and brought it out to sea, commending my remains forever into the ocean, to travel around the world in the ocean currents and to seek knowledge wherever I may be.