He lies on the Jester's cart

This rain soaks my feet, my ankles, my legs. It rises through my veins and floods my belly. I float in this sea. Beyond a hand’s breadth from my eyes, all I see are gray, blurred shadows. The umbrella snatches from my hand, like a bird trapped, desperately trying to fly away, stuck between chin and shoulder. I could let it go, I could let it take my soul with it, beyond the low clouds crushing me in this empty space of death and solitude. The stream of water running along the sidewalk deepens now, high heels or flats, it doesn’t matter anymore, this is a flood, and I’m in it, up to my nose. This apnea that chains me to the ground, pounding from inside my chest with fists of desperation, free me. Breathe me.

It could scream.

A nuclear bomb could explode.

The tall concrete buildings could collapse. And I would still be here, waiting in this liquid prison. Where my boundaries are, I no longer know, and I don’t care. Whether this water fills me or empties me. Whether it exists or not.

Whether I am going mad or already insane.

The car stops. There is no procession behind it. Dissolved in the rain. The coffin inside is white. It is simple, without frills or decorations. A man in a dark suit passes in front of me. He runs, doesn’t want to get wet. With a rapid movement he opens the trunk, from the storm of water three more men appear stretching their arms into the car. The coffin slides out.

It feels like watching a silent film while the downpour fills harshly my ears. It almost feels like being outside of it all, as if it was a distant representation, the hands, the wet clothes, the dark glasses, the countdown.

It’s only the sound of the lifeless body knocking against the wooden walls as it is lifted too hastily onto their shoulders that brings me back here.

Heavy again on my bones.

And as that reckless motion propagates through all dimensions of space, spinning awkwardly in the air as these strangers take charge of the final journey, that’s when a wave of nausea grips me at the end of the sternum, and I bend over.

It is colorless, it almost chokes me. There’s nothing left inside me to throw out. A metaphor more real than reality. The spasms seize me violently, shaking me like a dry branch, and I can only watch their black-shoed feet pass by me. They climb the marble steps. And then, out of my sight.

When it all seems to have passed, I stand up, exhausted. The church door has a purple drape hanging on the right side. Inside, only the distant lights of the altar are visible. They place the coffin on the pedestal with more care now.

Only now do I realize it is over. Truly over.

I will not enter this church today.

This is not a church today.