death is inconvenient

In the parking, he tries thinking of something good to say, for when he's inside. But the lot is full. As he tries to find space elsewhere, the only thing that comes to mind is when they last spoke. He’d come home from the hospital, one last time, to find Dad on the porch.

"What're you doing?" he snapped.

A cigarette clipped between Dad's fingers.

"Following your brother, I guess."

In a real soap opera he might've slapped his dad. But all the talking to his brother’s doctor had made him too tired to be in one anymore, that day.

"Enough smokes."

He snatched the pack out of Dad's other hand, flicked the cigarette away and crushed it under his foot.

---

He’d hidden the smokes in a box of his now-late brother’s things and gone shopping, thinking chicken soup for dinner. Ingredients in hand, he walked home to find that Dad had discovered the smokes.

---

He spends the rest of the morning in the parlor's bathroom, plucking out strands of white in his hair. Since the fire he’s become more conscious of them. Or maybe it’s his barber, pointing them out.

“You feel a bit older, somehow,” she’d said last week, snipping at his bangs.

Not that she could've known.

He collects the hairs now, noticing some of them still black in places. Tracing them where they turn from white to black, he settles on one that almost looks like a spent candle. Everything but the tip white.

---

After the eulogy he's stopped by family he barely recognizes anymore, sobbing that he'd said such beautiful things about his father. And how brave, too. To hold back tears and wear that face.

It's not that, he says.

He's just out of tears for it.

They ask other things. How's the new house? Alright. You save anything from the fire? Did my best. I got the camera, he says. But not the photo albums. The rest I'll manage, he hears himself saying.

And the nerve of that funeral director, they say, too -- couldn't have picked a better day? I know, he says. It's inconvenient. He says what the funeral director said. Death is inconvenient.

But really, he jokes. To the funeral home it’s just another day. What an inconvenience it must be for them, so busy, to deal with him wanting a different day.

What an inconvenient person, they must be thinking.

---

His relatives offer their numbers. Call if you need anything. He nods.

When he gets home, he catches a whiff of smoke and rushes inside. The scent leads him to the backyard, where his neighbor is holding a barbecue.

---

Later, he pulls a tiramisu cake out of the fridge. Setting it on the table, he spills out a box of candles, counting twenty over the cake's center. He holds the lighter steady.

And tries to brush aside a thought. An inconvenient one. Couldn't he set himself on fire too?

Well. Maybe.

Happy birthday, he whispers to himself. And lights.