A Connection (a short story)
Following the slow course of the pall, the crowd of mourners proceeded to the open grave, overhung by a sky of dull iron. Among the dozens of people wearing black — most of them total strangers, a handful she recognized as relatives, but also, she knew, many relatives whom she did not recognize — there was a teenage girl, perhaps sixteen, who felt like a pretender in her own black clothes. Affecting the dress, the expression, even the pensive walk of a bereaved relative, she had barely known the uncle she was play-acting grief for in this churchyard. She could have told him apart by sight, yes, but not by name, and even now she did not have an exact idea who his wife, children and grandchildren were.
When everyone had gathered around, the last words had been said, and the casket lowered into the grave, people began to pay their personal respects. One after another, they walked up to the hole in the ground, stood silently for a moment, and then cast a handful of dirt into it. This ritual startled Amy. She hadn’t been at a funeral since she was a little girl, and couldn’t remember seeing this in any movie, or reading about it anywhere. She didn’t need it explained to her; the symbolism was clear enough. But she was growing increasingly uncomfortable, knowing that sooner or later, it would be her turn to stand up there, adding a final act of presumption to her hypocrisy.
She was almost last, having waited until most of the others were already plodding away. She guessed that by this point, nobody would pay enough attention to her to notice that she only stood there, and never threw anything down onto the casket. This was so.
As she was making her way back to the car park with her family, they caught up with her aunt, the new widow, who began speaking with her parents. The woman’s bearing was marked by sorrow, but there was also a strange exhilaration in her expression, perhaps because she was overcome with memories of her husband, perhaps only a sign of utter exhaustion. Whatever it was, there would be nothing left of it by the time everyone assembled at the reception. But at this moment, still speaking or seeming to speak with a certain lightness even as she was crying, she turned to the girl: “It’s almost your birthday, isn’t it? In the hospital, he told me, ‘I don’t think I’ll get around to sending Amy a present now.’”
First performed at VerseVers on September 11th 2026