In a respite from the dusty work in the musty barn, Kevin spots, from his perch in the hayloft, a dark line curving around one of the few hills off the river bluffs. It’s a funerary convoy going to the cemetery. The departed’s car is already in the gates and the others trail it to the graveyard’s heart. As the vehicles release their mourners, the dripping mist ripens to a gentle rain.

   Not far from the burial, Brent snoops on the ceremony. Under a tree for discretion more than dryness, he hasn’t put on his windbreaker. The girl from the depot is there, and he thinks, ‘What was her name again? Allison.’
   The bereaved are tight together. Allison’s so insensible to the rain’s recommence that two women, one clearly her mother, lean their umbrellas to cover her. Then a man, he guesses her father, steps up to speak. Through the shower, inexact words reach his ear.

   Sadly looking on his family, lingering on his daughter, Ed Kujoh opens the eulogy. “You probably remember my brother, Daniel Aaron Kujoh, for his work, for his service in the community, or for his unflagging, upbeat spirit.
   “Many of us trusted our most beloved friends, our pets, to his care at one time or another, and he never let us down. Every charity in the county knew he would give what he could, oftentimes more than he should. If volunteers were needed, from blood drives to the fire brigade, he was there. And I can’t count the number of times that his optimism, his love of life, or his heroic sense of decency made a difference in my life, or my family’s. Especially my daughter’s.
   “I don’t honestly believe that it was his time. No, it was too sudden. I’m sure I’m not alone in wishing he were with us still, even for just one more day. If only to say goodbye …”
   Allison’s dad speaks of her favorite uncle, but the words are drowned out by a buzz, as if she’s gone partially deaf. Not that it matters. She wonders, ‘What meaning could words possibly have in my world? Now that he’s gone …’ All the days would be monotonous as the patter of rain on umbrellas. Plastic and hollow and cold.
   Across the rows of gravestones, there’s a weird iridescence from the adjoining hilltop. And Allison can hear another voice.
   ‘Famished spirit flags. Weathered brow beaten by unwelkin winds. Suffering now, until who knows where, then. Founding fallacies. Common sensory apprehension. Apertures in narrowed vision.’

   Brent moves under a nearer tree where he can discern the speaker’s tribute. He listens but then loses the plot as he loses himself in studying Allison. Not simply sad, but also very confused. So confused, but so beautiful. And there are other words, otherworldly. He only suspects his mind is wandering.
   ‘Closed eyes claiming wisdom from a single ray of light, through a keyhole that has no key. Dysfunction, intransigent, machinating malagitant. Inaspirant discontent.’

 

   Kevin is caught up in a vision, unexpected. On a small hill in the cemetery, a stray shimmer expands in luminiferous limbs to a glittering whorl above the ritual. Deep in his subconscious, there are mutterings.
   ‘Exorcisions through a prism, extricating color rays. The end of too many days under hood. Angelic asterisks. Footnote the underworld. They make each other deeds to devil. Though none of this is in their nature, only in their dreams.’

 

   “… I love you, little brother. We’re all here to say we love you. And to say – goodbye.” With a sniff and a tear wiped away, Ed rejoins his wife and daughter.
   He puts a loving arm around Allison. She is altogether oblivious to him. Nancy gives her a conciliatory pat. She’s immune to her cousin’s touch as well, still staring off a short distance.
   Through Allie’s angle, Nancy notices a glint on the hill. She surveils the burial ground briefly, idly, for what source could be reflected there? Some random sheen, perhaps off a piece of foil or cellophane from a bouquet.

 

   Engaged by the distant light-dance, Kevin gets a hum, a tickle in the brain. He feels giddy and almost weightless, kind of high. It’s a high he hasn’t felt in a while. Since the last time he actually enjoyed it, whenever that was.
   This was even better than the first time he got off on meth. It’s closer to the first time he got stoned. Not the first time he smoked pot, but after. It took a couple of tries before he knew what it was doing to his brain and that he liked it.
   Beguiled in his reverie, Kevin’s ignorant of his employer. Luke scopes him from the veranda of the house, marches across the yard, and enters the barn below.
   The first time on speed was a wild rush, a crazy burst of jet fuel that nothing before or after ever compared to. A sensation that was lost on the mind because the mind was so overwhelmed with the sensation.
   But that first time he got properly stoned, that was something. A real third-eye-opening experience. The other night with Larry was just another dulling daze that took the edge off his pain. Maybe if he was secure and in a good place in his soul, he could get that high again.
   He laments out loud, “Maybe if I had a normal family and a normal life I could feel … happy without drugs. I don’t even get what I’m feeling now. All I’m sure of is everything I haven’t got.”
   “Life’s not about what you don’t got. You can make it about what you don’t got, but that has nothing to do with living.”
   Kevin’s jarred by the stealthy arrival of Luke in the hayloft. It takes a few seconds with their gazes locked for the wisdom to jibe, and then it’s too late.
   “Son, what’s wrong with your eyes?”
   He averts them, but can’t erase what’s been exposed. “Nothing, I –”
   “I, ah … I need to make a phone call.”