The sky is bleak, and all Minghao sees is black. Black shoes, black robes. The sky is crying and so is he.

The funeral procession leads him inside the church, and somehow, the rain doesn’t stop, but the skies clear just enough for the sun to shine through. The modest coffin lay amidst a flowerbed, a few steps away from the pulpit. Right above the coffin, a four glass panels let traces of light stream through resplendently like pieces of the puzzle that make up the high ceiling of the church. It illuminates his grandfather’s body, and Minghao thinks, it’s the healthiest his grandfather has looked all his life – which is ironic, because he’s not alive anymore. The late Mr. Xu’s dark glasses are placed at the feet of his coffin.

Minghao likes to think it’s a way to say his grandfather’s set free from from a life of darkness, and now he’s going to see everything without a shadow of visual impairment holding him back.

“Mr Xu lived a long life of peace and solitude, and at 96, he has departed from us. Today, we-“

The eulogies go in and out of Minghao’s ears; relatives who know close to nothing about his grandfather describe his solitary lifestyle superficially, force their eyes to moisten and squeeze out a tear, then proceed to choke out the rest of their rehearsed speech.

He closes his eyes and thinks of afternoons where sunlight streams through the windows, too, but it hits the floor and makes the kitchen look like it’s gone through the Sepia filter on Instagram. His grandfather’s singing a Jackie Cheung song, and Minghao’s practicing his wushu moves with an imaginary partner; six-year old him thinks he needs to practice his五步拳 more to impress his instructor the next day; eighty-year old grandpa watches him with a crinkled smile on his face and Minghao doesn’t know what he’s thinking, but he hopes his grandpa’s impressed, too.

Someone tugs at his sleeves and he’s steered towards a queue. Everyone’s lining up to pay their last respects, doing the customary U-turn by the coffin that may mean something to a select few, and to most people at the ceremony, nothing at all.

His mother goes before him, leaving a bouquet of lilies by the casket that she had bought after eons of research – he’d used her phone yesterday and the first entry in her search history was “acceptable funeral flowers”. He doesn’t blame her, honestly.

When Minghao himself meets his grandfather during the open casket ceremony, time seems to stop.

He holds his grandfather’s hand, and it almost creeps him out how it’s still warm. Minghao looks at his grandpa’s closed, serene eyes, because there’s nothing to fear. He wants to apologize for leaving China – leaving him - when he turned eight, he wants to say so much but he can’t. The people behind him are at a polite distance, but Minghao senses they’re getting impatient.

He’s about to leave, when the hand in the coffin tightens its grip on Minghao’s own.

Holy-

The closed eyes of serenity? They open.

This isn’t real

Minghao’s head fills with white noise, and all he can think of is that the hired mortician for this funeral did a too-stellar job of restructuring his grandpa’s face because oh god he just smiled oh my god he’s mouthing words out this is not real this is-

When the figure on the coffin’s mouthed its last words beyond death, the eyes close once more with an air of finality.

Minghao’s mouth opens and shuts repeatedly, words unable to form themselves as he looks towards the crowd like a fish out of water. He’s losing his , he’s losing his mind and-

Blinding light flashes before Minghao and he thinks he feels like he’s set on fire and the eyes of his grandfather’s close. Minghao thinks he hears glass shattering from above, he thinks he smells something burning and then he doesn’t even think anymore because the world is now black and so is his mind.

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