Fiction by jonny diamond

PROLOGUE
It was ten days until she’d planned to die, but Julia had made only half the arrangements. 

The Hall: Done, thanks to second cousin Elliot, a past-treasurer in good standing, despite the requisite improprieties. 
The Invitations: Sent a few days ago, minus the anxiety her and Bob had endured in the selection of guests for their wedding (she’d be dead, why worry about bruised egos). 
The Musicians: Theatrically non-committal, probably angling for more money.
The Caterer: New, and perhaps a risk, but she wanted everything perfect and unique.
The Enactor: Stress-free. He’d done her mother, her father, and her aunt Paige, and was highly favoured by the local council. 

She worried, over these and other pre-death matters (Casey’s entry applications, the price of real strawberries) as she sat waiting for Bob (now ex-Bob) in a strip mall “café,” a place for which the quotation marks could never be too big. They’d tried, her and Bob, for sixteen years—but once Casey had made the adjustment to high school, divorce followed quickly. They’d both made half-hearted attempts at other relationships, but remained each other’s first phone call from a sinking ship. Julia anticipated an argument, but her mind was made up. 

-Hi Bob.

-Julia.

The decision had been made in the shower. She’d always loved water, in all its forms: lakes, puddles, rain, rivulets, eddies, leaks, tears, in a glass on a hot day, the bath, the shower (oh the shower!). But on that morning, inexplicably and for the first time, the shower appalled her, was a chore, a waste of time, insignificant. Leering. False. If she couldn’t enjoy a shower, she couldn’t go on. It felt like a source in her life had run dry, would soon begin to leak out from all things, begin to flow backwards, consume her. It was better to anticipate, she thought, better to leave on your own terms, without bitterness, anger. And if she did it before her next birthday, Casey’s inheritance would yield a better percentage.

-It just makes sense Bob. And I would love you to be there, it would mean a lot, and it would be good for Casey.

Bob said nothing, sat there, quiet. Julia wasn’t going to press, the appeal to Casey’s well-being had perhaps been too much, but it was the truth.

-Ok. But for the record, I think you have a few good years in you. But ok, I’ll go.

-Thanks Bob. The timing is right: it’s the most beautiful part of fall, people’s schedules are freeing up, I’ve got this great locale, it’ll give Case time to recover for his winter trials. And with the way things are these days I’m just glad I get to make the decision myself, and plan it my way, just how I’ve always imagined it.

The two were silent. Bob recalled the day of his grandmother’s death, before everything had become overwrought and commercial, before the greeting cards and photo albums, the scented embalmers fluid, before the choreography and the protocol. He’d gotten drunk that night and narrowly escaped an ill-advised fling with a distant and older relation. Julia imagined a hall full of loved ones and admirers, tasteful music, interesting but edible food—celebratory solemnity among her nearest and dearest, mournful, but not indulgently so.

-Well, let’s order.

-Yes.

PART 1
The musicians fell through (it turned out they didn’t even have their own threnodium, she would’ve had to rent it herself), but Julia was able to find a decent stand-in at the last minute, who would do all the standards, plus a few of her favourites. The weather was good; not wanting to leave the bright fall sky, Julia decided to greet her guests on the steps. Her Aunt Cecil, who always cried at deaths (regardless of whose it was), was among the first to arrive. She was already on the verge of tears.

-Oh Julia, my dear Julia, so good to see you. This is my friend Roger. Cecil was Julia’s youngest aunt, and every time she went to a family function she brought a new friend, who was always precisely thirty-two years old.

-Nice to meet you, thank you for coming, please, go right in and enjoy your selves. The bisque is a delight.  

People ambled in, sober and elegant: friend, colleague, citizen. Julia had done well in life, and was pleased to see that fact reflected in the quality of her guests. Perseverance and a little bit of good taste had paid off. Judges, lawyers, enactors, managers; for a period before Casey was born (a stressful, awful period) Julia had volunteered at the local courthouse, and had numerous friends in the legal community (among whom high cheek bones and straight teeth counted for a lot).

-Judge Peterson, thank you for coming.

-Hello Julia. I couldn’t resist, I knew your enactor in law school, a fine man—I’d say you’re in good hands.

Julia waited until 3:20 before going inside. The hall was nicely full, not crowded, she flushed with pleasure to see the disparate characters of her forty-seven years chatting together, decorous and charming, surrounded by swoops of crenated, taupe bunting. She went slowly to the podium—for a long moment no one seemed to notice her. Is this what it’s like to be dead, she thought?

But then Corporal Bosky gave her a conspiratorial little squeeze on the elbow, and the illusion ended. Julia ascended the dais, took her place behind the lectern, and delivered the short benedictory that would begin the Epikedion.  

PART II
As is the custom, people stayed until the small hours to drink, eat, dance, and tell riotous stories of the deceased. And as is also the custom, people drank too much, complained about the food, danced like idiots, and told stories that were really about themselves. Strangers sat close, made assignations, drank just enough to charm and be charmable, left together leaning precariously on one another. Old and young stayed up past bedtime, refused to think about the next day, of life’s exigencies (death’s exigencies proving easily dismissable).

It was now 4:30 am—Julia had been dead for seven hours. There remained three old friends, a broker, a teacher, and a television producer. They were between the ages of 43 and 46. They were drunk, very drunk, and had not seen each other for eleven years. Each of them had once been in love with Julia. They were now in the middle of organizing a fishing trip. Julia had been dead for seven hours and the world was busy making plans without her. The broker (Tom) was asleep. The teacher (Phil) and the producer (Eric) shook him awake, and they listed to the exit, rudderless and happy.

The hall was now an empty mess. The blue and taupe bunting had fallen everywhere. People had left with the scented candles, which came in a slightly less pungent version of the embalmer’s fluid. Tables glistened with spilt alcohol and soggy ash. In three hours, six people would be in to clean the mess. Of the six: 

-two were presently sleeping dreamless sleeps 
-one was having a nightmare involving shopping carts and punch clocks 
-one was dreaming sweetly of an old girlfriend 
-one was staring at the mirror in mute horror
-the last was happily abandoning thoughts of sleep in light of the ongoing and unlikely perfection of a third date. 

By the time they’d finished cleaning and scouring every inch of the hall, Julia’s earthly remains would have little to do with what she’d meant to anybody, ever—the world would have begun the long simple task of forgetting her. And that was the day Julia Miller died. 

(“The Day of Julia Miller’s Death” first appeared in PRISM.)