Mulled Vine

Aaron sat awkwardly at the back of the chapel, his bulky, inappropriately clad frame bathed in a rainbow of dusty colours. He did not want to be here but he had promised her he would say good-bye. A ghostly minister droned on about life’s passing and hereafter glories, things that neither he nor Aaron really believed in. She was dead and that was that – dust to dust. Form dictated that they should be here, but it was empty, a vestigial residue of more superstitious times. Aaron walked to the front where the coffin lay enshrouded in candlelit mahogony, silk and flowers, and leaned over to kiss her cold lips, one last time.