Fossils. Robert A. Webster

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      Charles felt the walls closing in as his world fell apart. He longed to hold his wife, tell her how much he loved her, smell her fragrance, and hear her comforting voice telling him that everything would be fine. Standing with his hands clasped in front of him, he glanced over at her gloss wood casket and heard the faint hum of the conveyor echo in the chapel as a curtain closed and the coffin slowly moved toward the furnace.

      Charles’s sons, John and Peter, two of the pallbearers, then came and sat on the pew beside him. John patted his father’s arm, but Charles just stared forward.

      Lorraine, Charles’s daughter, with tears streaming down her face, gently squeezed his hand as the vicar prayed for the safe journey of Mary’s soul. Charles wasn’t listening and showed no emotion trapped within his earthly cocoon. Apart from being with his beloved Mary, nothing else mattered to Charles.

      With sobbing heard in the crematoriums chapel on the outskirts of Cleethorpes, the vicar finished his prayer and told the congregation to reflect on Mary’s life.

      Charles gazed up at a ray of sunlight that shone through a skylight. He gasped and smiled. “Mary,” he whispered, as an apparition of Mary’s face as a young woman appeared in the sunbeam.

      “Hello my darling,” said Mary’s voice in his head.

      Charles trembled and thought, ‘Oh Mary, I am so lonely and sad. I want to end this and be with you.’

      Mary smiled and Charles remembered the smile he fell in love with all those years ago, as Mary said. “We will soon be together my darling, but now is not your time. You still have plenty to live for...remember what I always told you. Life is too short to be sad.”

      “Dad, sit down,” whispered Lorraine as the vicar beckoned the congregation to sit.

      Charles, his thoughts interrupted, sat on the pew. The vicar went to the small pulpit and began his sermon, giving details about Mary’s life, a woman he barely knew.

      “Are you alright, Dad?” whispered Lorraine, noticing Charles smiling up at the skylight.

      Charles ignored her, ‘Where are you my darling?’ Charles thought, watching rays of sunlight dancing through the empty skylight.

      “Dad, are you okay?” repeated Lorraine, squeezing his hand.

      John, hearing Lorraine’s concern, looked at his father and gently nudged him. “Dad!”

      Charles juddered and smiled at John and Peter, and with a glazed expression and tears in his eyes, looked and nodded at Lorraine.

      Lorraine, relieved to see his tears, wiped them from his eyes with her sodden handkerchief. She kissed him on the cheek, faced forward, and listened while the vicar continued his sermon. Charles now felt warm, safe, and no longer alone. He glanced up again at the empty skylight, and as the vicar's words become a blur, his thoughts drifted into happy memories.

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