we were driving back from the funeral, me at the wheel, and i couldn't stop thinking about how red the wood of the coffin had looked when they'd lowered it down into the ground. it could have been something to do with how bright it had been, the sun was directly overhead when the coffin was dropped into the dungy brown earth, maybe that was it i thought. whatever it was, i'd sure never seen a red one before, mahogany sure in those showrooms, but not pillar box red like that. i let my hands slide from the wheel as the road ahead was straight, straight, straight all the way to the horizon. the desert spread out on all sides like an endless sheet of sandpaper, ready to rub down the sky a little each time the earth spun round.
'did any one of you notice how red that coffin was?' i said.
'what, do you think we're blind or something, how could you miss it?' said jill.
'wow, that was one red coffin,' billy replied, 'too red maybe. when they bury me i just want plain old, honest to god black, that wood must have cost him maybe as much again.'
'as much again as what?' angela said.
'i aren't sure,' said billy, 'it's just one of those things that people say isn't it.'
'is it?' toby asked. but no one could be bothered taking it any further, could they?
i looked out at the road ahead and ran over the remains of something that looked as if it had been originally crushed last week. no one else noticed though, no bump, there wasn't even a sound as the body was so dry. why hadn't the vultures swooped in and got a beak full? i tried not to think about it, you can't die twice, not even in the middle of nowhere.
'do you think it was painted red?' i said, 'i mean, i for one have never seen wood that red occurring naturally before.'
'me neither,' said lucas.
'or i,' said someone from the shadows who i couldn't quite make out. either frank or marie.
'actually, i have,' said edward who's always seen everything before on account of him going on a round the world trip biannually. edward is an authority on everything. 'it's a really rare tree that wood of that colour comes from, arbor vulgaris, it grows in the deepest south american rainforests only, and even then only four have ever been found, there are special squads of pygmies employed just to try and track them down.'
'employed by who?' i asked.
edward paused. 'various national forestry commissions.'
something didn't ring true.
'you just made that up,' i said.
'prove it,' said edward. i scratched my head.
he had me there, innocent until proven guilty. edward is never corrected on these things as no one can be bothered to do the research afterwards.
'he always was a flashy bastard,' said mildred, changing the subject 'oak's not good enough for the likes of him is it not?'
'i'd be satisfied with cardboard,' said wilf and we all laughed, it was just typical of him to come out with something like that. i'd even noticed that him stuffing a few of the sandwiches into his pockets back at the reception, but i didn't say anything, you don't like to, do you? poor bastard doesn't even have a dog. all the same, at a funeral!
'i'm surprised they let him make a coffin out of such as rare tree as that,' said jane, 'it seems like a dreadful waste of resources to me. all those trees want to do is grow plain and straight up to the clouds and the best we can think to do with them is bury them back where they came from. what's the world coming to?'
either frank or marie sighed heavily, jane's such a hippie sometimes, it bugs the hell out of some of my gang, if they had their way she'd have been ostracised years ago. but she brings a certain broadness.
'christ jane, it's only a tree, it's not like they had to kill someone and hollow them out to bury him in,' said carrie. i imagined wilf being slit down his belly and his guts spilled out by hooks to accommodate my wide load when the time came. it'd cost less than an arbor vulgaris no doubt.
'actually, i think jane has a point on this one,' said andrew, 'why should we have to kill some tree just so we can stop the worms getting at us for a couple more years? you can't hold them back forever, they've got a job to do just like the rest of us. it seems more than a bit selfish from where i'm sat.'
'at least you've got a window seat,' cracked deborah, and the car roared with laughter until we all felt guilty about having fun on the way home from a funeral.
i started to wish i'd worn black, i didn't realise that was one of the conventions, it was the first time i'd seen anyone buried.
'it's your eyes that go first,' said mark, 'i read it somewhere. your eyes rot but your hair and nails keep growing, that's why all zombies have long hair and empty eye sockets.'
i started to think about a zombie emerging from the red coffin, but i was fairly sure they locked it down tightly before he sank down into the dirt, the man had a hammer. the nails they'd used reminded me of jesus they were so long. maybe zombies were the reason that people had to get buried in wooden boxes, trees were all that were protecting our brains from being eaten perhaps.
'it's a common misconception you've just repeated there,' said edward in a very demeaning tone, 'nothing, repeat nothing, carries on growing after you die. it's just that your skin sinks back a little after death, that's all, so for a couple of days after it looks as if those parts of the body are still growing. the truth is that nothing's getting any longer, it's an optical illusion caused by retraction. and let's have no more talk of zombies either, they don't exist.'
'are you sure?' said mark.
'well, i've seen most things and i haven't ever seen a zombie,' said edward.
edward's story seemed less interesting than mark's, so i continued to believe we hadn't seen the last of our old friend. he was smiling when they shut him in, like he knew something we'd have to wait to find out. maybe that was it. i'd have to sleep in a deep sea diver's helmet from now on.
'personally, i think i'm going to get myself cremated,' said jennifer.
'what right now?' said michael rather sharply, who's always trying to get a dig in at jen ever since she dumped him last christmas. everyone else in the car pretended they didn't hear what he said, no one wanted an argument, not today of all days. i glanced back and notice something strange about patrick's face in the rear view mirror, he looked troubled all of a sudden, which just wasn't like him, normally he's such a happy-go-lucky kind of person.
'i think i might get burnt now too, i'd never fancied it before, but just watching them put that box in the ground and knowing that he was rotting away in there already made me feel sad as hell. i thought i was going to cry, right there and then.'
several other people nodded in agreement, but i wasn't one of them, i hate to admit it but all i could think about was the colour of the coffin. it had burned into my brain or something. i suppose by rights i should have been sad, he was one of my best friends after all, and there he was, gone. but all i could think of was those pygmies, digging out the roots of that great tree, singing songs as they attached ropes and tugged with all their might. to be honest, i felt sadder that time when i caught wilf doing performance art in the street. how are any of us supposed to outdo a send off like that now?
'why does death make us so sad, edward?' asked james.
'edward, is it really the end for us?' said karen.
'can a person live on beyond death edward?' said tom, 'and i'm not talking about any of that crap about living on through the good deeds you might do when you're alive, or joining some faceless organisation that makes many people into one collective entity and therefore disregards the death of the individual.'
edward shrugged his shoulders.
'does anyone know how he died?' asked trevor.
'i heard a car accident,' said bill.
' 'flu,' said trudie.
'i thought i heard the priest say something about consumption,' derek said, 'but i thought they'd eradicated that years ago.'
we all realised that we were too busy looking at the coffin to listen to what was actually been said. still, it'd no doubt be in the papers tomorrow. maybe we'd get our photos in there too, the grieving friends.
'i don't think i want to die,' said belinda, 'i had high hopes of dying before, i thought it was a special point in life where entire universes collide but now it looks like an everyday kind of thing like going to the post office or making a cup of tea. i thought we might see his soul fly out as they shovelled the soil on or something, but nothing of the sort.'
'souls are invisible,' sandra reminded us all.
'that's what gullible fools say to make themselves feel better,' said edward. 'you can't go blaming your sensory faculties for your inability to discern souls, they're not ill-equipped for anything else. if i went around telling people i had a family of tiny monkeys in my ear, but no one was allowed to see them, they'd just have to take my word on it, you'd all have me locked up.'
the thought of locking edward up regardless suddenly struck me.
'still, being dead doesn't seem like such a great deal, it looks like a whole load of nothingness from what i saw today,' said geoffrey, 'i think we should try and work around it'
'we'd need robot bodies,' said simon.
'and computer brains,' said carl. 'what if there was a power surge?' i said.
'well, i've been thinking about cremation anyway,' said jennifer.
'there's no getting around death,' said beth.
'i think it might be a marvellous opportunity,' said basil, 'it might end up bringing out the best in us.' everyone looked at basil, who i don't recall as being in our group before, we must have picked him up at the buffet or something.
i have no idea where it is that we're going all of a sudden, and when i check the glove compartment the map seems to have disappeared. i ram my foot down on the accelerator and hear something crack under the bonnet. the car grinds to a halt on the road. all i can see in every direction is sand.
'i'll have a look at the engine,' says edward.
the car holds its collective breath. we are a car full of carrion.