The essence of being

Couches are pushed against the walls. The dining table is removed altogether, cleaned specially for this event. The imitation Persian rug lies majestically below four vacant pedestals shining like gold. Reflecting make-believe light, but it's only an illusion. My seven-year-old self sits in a corner, subdued. I am not allowed to leave, and I am not allowed to talk.

The chrysanthemums’ imposing essence saturates a room crowded with people dressed in black displaying various stages of sadness. There is a murmur of voices, some old ladies from the neighbourhood just sit there quiet, rosaries in hand waiting. Father calls them funeral crashers. ‘Can't help themselves. They love a funeral, all that misery. They thrive on it. Sometimes they don't even know the defunct.’  His voice goes up an octave showing his mild disapproval.

Everyone stands when the coffin arrives. The pallbearers shuffle their polished shoes with reverence. The weight pushing down their shoulders is lifted when their burden is laid atop the posts

The men raise the lid and place it against the wall.

I can’t help marvelling at its sheer size, eyes following it up, and up, almost to the ceiling. I am so enthralled with the lid I don't notice what it has revealed until my mother is crouched over its shiny wooden form.

Silent tears stream down her face. I only see white flowers covering the whole interior surface of the coffin and a type of lace forming a protective screen over the pale, wrinkled, lifeless form of my Vó, my Brazilian Grandmother. My sister stood on the threshold of the room, not daring to come inside, perhaps in case the body opens its eyes in defiance of death.

Ironically, the living room is now the dead room.

In the distance, the sun is sinking behind the power lines, transforming the apartment blocks into dark sentinels. The golden cross intricately designed on top of the coffin's lid shines one last time before it lays forever in darkness.

The moon is high in the sky, warm air doing the rounds through the open doors and windows. The mourners pray together, the elderly ladies rocking back and forth with their clicking rosaries, mum is on her knees. My sister sleeps on my dad's lap, my eyes sting. I've never been up so late.

Fizzing candles are the only sound.

I am on a makeshift bed under the chairs, the back of my eyelids turns yellow with the rising sun.

My uncles get the lid ready to close the casket. The wailing is loud now, coming from different mouths.

My grandfather’s rough hands cover his teary eyes.

A procession of mourners follows along the street towards the cemetery. Any traces of her physical existence will be forever hidden in the darkness of the mahogany coffin.

As a child, I didn't play ghost hunting. I was too scared of them for that sort of game. My Vó wouldn't let us invoke or talk about them, lest they hear us and decide to play along, or worse, come and stay. The fear of ghosts was ever present. The girls’ toilet in my high school was a concrete square pushed against a concrete wall on the sunless side of the campus. Grey everything. The fluorescent lights were constantly flicking or not working at all. The doors to the cubicles were always broken. Crude, offensive graffiti depicting dicks or primitive faces, and revelatory phrases from past students etched on every wall or door available. Even the mirrors were permanently smeared with indescribable goo. It was said a woman died under mysterious circumstances there, she hanged herself, and her ghost was left to incite terror and possess bodies of naïve girls who linger for too long. She was known as the Blond of the Bathroom – a literal translation from my mother tongue. And you could invoke her by calling her name three times, swearing repeatedly and kicking a toilet basin. Sometimes we would dare each other to do it, only to chicken out at the last moment. I was terrified of going in alone.

 Unlike me, my only eight-year-old son is unafraid of ghost hunting. As I am preparing my latest blog post, I observe him from the corner of my eye, getting ‘ready.’

Fingerless gloves, face mask, hoodie. Double barrel rifle and a wrench.

He checks the watch and announces, 'I'll be back in a half-hour.'

'Where are you going?' 

'Ghost-hunting,' he says, lifting his chin.

I give him a long, quiet look; the mask doesn't hide the smile reflecting in his eyes. 'Have fun, darling. But try not to disturb the ghosts too much. After all, they earned their rest.' 

His friend is checking the rifle, making sure the pretend ammunition is loaded. Imagination is called for, no room for reality. They run out the door towards the bush across the road. I feel sorry for the souls that roam there. From my window I can hear they are tramping through bush, calling one another. But who knows? Ghosts might enjoy the sound of kid's laughter and the make-believe games on the edge of reality.

Soon enough, the boys are back, the air of victory transparent on their faces. 'Were there any ghosts?'  I ask joining their game.

'Stray ghosts, green ghosts, even zombies.' His friend replies, chest full of pride.

 They walk past me to play Lego, tributes to the simplicity of life before puberty.

Seasons passed; moons changed. Now, I see the birth and death of stars where all that exists resides. Time has stopped.

How peculiar is this non-physical appearance? My soul is suspended in mid-air, floating. There is no feel or matter. I once was – but no longer am. There was so much to self – insights, memories, experiences. Dubious roads, victorious achievements. I am sure of it. Yet, strangely, I can't seem to remember any of it. Yet, my essence, my floating self was formed by all that came before this moment.

My corporeal self was encased in flowers and white lace. It lay with eyes slightly opened and a pale face devoid of expression.

It rested in the centre of a room.

I was compelled to stay near it. I watched it constantly. Where it went, I went.

The mass of matter which housed my spirit for all these years lay in the wooden bed surrounded by living bodies, my son now a man among them.

A grey wave of anguish emanates from their trapped spirits floating in the air around me and saturates the space.

I should know them, but they were simply alive. I had no familiarity or memory of the living. Once my essence was freed from the mass all that it was ceased to exist, and the energy started to flow uncharted.

Heads were bent towards the laid body I once inhabited. They paid their respects, and yellow ribbons flew towards my essence, demarking the path I saw forming ahead of me. Blue tears saturated the air I no longer breathed. Instead, I felt its atomic construction creating a starlit highway for me to follow.

They were lowering the lifeless body into a resting chamber.

Now it can return to its natural form – life to dust.

My essence follows the starlight highway left behind by blue tears and yellow ribbons to continue the everlasting journey across the universe.

            I can see my ancestors, those who paved the way, those who arrived in chains from across the vast ocean, those who told stories, those who connected our chains, unbreaking.

            I can see my ancestors, and they embrace me, and we are one.

 Glossary

Vó (Portuguese): Grandmother

This story was written as part of Writing Change, Writing Inclusion program at Centre for Stories.