The Mourning
by Michael S.
Collins
In the
beginning, there was sadness. This was because
the Lord, who had been kind and gentle and loved,
had died. His death wasn’t unexpected, for
he was eighty-three, but his younger wife mourned
him like she would someone she had known longer
than two years. The funeral was attended by the
great and the good, and the official sadness of
it all extended all the way down the line, in
good taste. Yet, when the burial was done and
dusted – no crematoriums in matters of
regality – the mourning continued.
The
Lord’s widow was the one who ordered it.
“Until a suitable time has passed” she
said. And signed the declaration in her own blood,
or so the myth went. So the people had to remain
in their mournful best until such time as she
took away her own order. Only issue was, she died
of a heart attack a few months later, before she
could. And so now the town remains in mourning,
because it was never officially brought out of it.
At least, that’s how the story goes.
Wilson
didn’t believe in such stories. They were
told to explain away why local customs were so,
without leading to more questions as to why they
were continuing to be so. It was a simple story
to scare off children’s curiosity, he
figured, and nothing much more than that. So he
walked into town, without any mourning wear on.
He was struck dead at the first shop. These
things happen when you ignore local customs.
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