The line moves slowly. Handshakes, soft murmurs, the polite choreography of shared grief. Someone presses a tissue into someone else’s hand. Someone stares at the floor, afraid their eyes might betray too much.
When their turn comes, they step forward, one by one. The room feels heavier here. They try to remember, but the body in the casket does not. The body remembers nothing.
It's my turn. I approach.
The makeup isn’t quite right. Too much warmth in the cheeks. A faint, stubborn mark on the forehead the foundation couldn’t hide. Is that a dress? It feels like a stranger’s choice. She wouldn't have liked that.
I stand there longer than I should, not out of attachment, but because something in me has gone still. Not sorrow. Not fear. Just a noticing.
The way the lashes rest without weight. The stillness of lips that once shaped a thousand sentences. Emptiness within the hands folded neatly on the chest.
This body is all that’s left. All else was movement, story, memory. This is neither living nor dead.
Someone sobs. Another prays under their breath. They feel none of it, the sadness that isn’t theirs, the silence that doesn’t belong to anyone.
This is all that remains when the verbs are gone.