Sorrows of Yesterday

Amelia clenched her clasped hands tighter, the increased pressure of her long slender fingers biting into the cold pale flesh of her hands leaving white bloodless fingerprints barely registered in her numbed mind. Staring fixedly at the reed coffin lying motionless at the bottom of the muddy grave, Amelia blinked back her tears and gulped back her sobs, forcing them down her constricted throat like a python swallowing a meal. The light mist of rain had been falling steadily for hours now, drenching the grass and turning the cemetery paths into shallow pools of muddy water. It continued falling relentlessly, not hard enough to soak the mourners instantly but building up in the nooks and crevices in the folds of your jacket, tiny droplets running together to form larger droplets then sliding toward one another as though each were a tiny liquid magnet – a clear version of liquid mercury. Amelia shivered as the persistent tiny river of rain slipped between the warmth of her neck and the coarse canvas fabric of her borrowed coat. She sniffed as the rivulets picked their way through the forest of her damp auburn curls and dripped onto the narrow bridge of her nose before sliding gleefully down its length and leaping off its upturned tip. Dark lashes fell quickly shielding large silver grey eyes, now a cloudy slate in sympathetic harmony with sombre occasion, and Amelia stared down at Leah’s coffin once more, allowing salty tears to mingle freely with the rain still streaming down her nose and cheeks. The buxom uniformed figure on her left offered a wrinkled but clean handkerchief, Amelia shook her head almost imperceptibly and kept her eyes fixed downward on the hole and its cargo. The woman shrugged her ample shoulders and shifted restlessly as she pocketed the rejected striped fabric. It wasn’t that Amelia did not want, or need the handkerchief but she was reluctant to reveal the glistening steel bracelets which cuffed her slender wrists firmly together. Her reticence had nothing to do with her own pride – if that was all that was at stake she would gladly display the prison handcuffs but this was Leah’s funeral and nothing, not even the devil himself, would cause her to bring any shame to Leah’s memory. The familiar stab of stubborn defiance rose through her frozen body, uncoiling like an overheated snake from the pit of her belly, pushing its way past her tight lungs, past her aching heart, up through her throat constricted with grief finally reaching her numbed brain, radiating a gentle warmth as it swept through her body causing her to raise her drooping shoulders and filling Amelia with renewed hope. She allowed a small smile to tug at the corners of her generous mouth but kept her head firmly bowed as she watched the now heavily falling rain create a large muddy pool in the middle of the mud spattered blooms that lay abandoned on top of the coffin. Amelia watched as their jewel like petals quickly diminished as more of the black earth and rain fell into the hole burying the flowers along with the coffin.
“Time to go” the second uniformed officer muttered as she tucked an escaped ginger curl behind her ear and replaced her peaked cap.
Amelia’s feet seemed rooted at the grave edge and would not respond to her brain’s commands.
“Come on love, it’s over” the handkerchief-bearing guard encouraged brightly and gave Amelia a little push.
Amelia looked down into the swiftly filling hole one last time then turned away and stumbled forward into the back of the first guard as her frozen feet slowly came to life. “Oi! Watch it” growled the woman as she regained her balance and stopped Amelia from falling.