A Conclusion to Coercion

She feels a vague irritation towards the weather, of all things. It should certainly be raining, or at least it would be if there were any poetic justice in the world. Sadly, the birds are twittering an incandescent nonsense in her ears and misplaced sunshine is tangling its rays with her hair. By all rights, it should have been a wedding. She muses on the apt inappropriateness of the situation; a wedding, a birthday, a children’s party, but certainly not a funeral. It almost seems a waste.

Still, the entire occasion is far from fitting. All she can think to do it to count hats to pass the time. Her eyes rove over the shaking, sombre clad backs which swarm her vision, like annoying but relatively harmless bees, and count seven. The typical feather and net affairs one would expect to find at such functions. Fighting an urge to roll her eyes as the minister continues to drone, she grants the coffin an appraising glance as a queen would grace the hoi polloi. It already lies in its ill-fated home, shrugging away handfuls of earth that threaten to mar its well varnished exterior. She glanced at the gold watch guarding her slim wrist. Some people are better suited to death than to life.