SMITHEREENS OF DEATH

The workshop is in ghostly silence. Faith, the apprentice, is sprawled out on one of the coffins, in the deathly slumber of a sluggard.

The figure at the door steps in, as soundlessly as a wraith. He knocks on the nearest coffin. The body inside the shop does not stir. The man knocks again, harder; impatiently. The boy jumps out of his sleep, wide-eyed, as though s.n.a.t.c.hed from the edge of a dark nightmare. "Come in!" he cries.

"I am already in," the man says, the faintest hint of cheek on the tip of his tongue, ". . . and you, welcome back to the land of the living!"

Faith is angry at the interruption of his dreams, and seething at this theatrical mockery by a stranger.

"What do you want?" His voice is low, slow; enc.u.mbered by malice.

"What else is here to want? . . . A coffin of course!"

"For who?" the boy asks, wiping the saliva of sleep from his mournful face. He has quickly lapsed back into the bucolic languor he is more comfortable in; his initial alertness had only been a reflex to being rudely awakened.

"For a dead person," the man answers, irritation trickling into his voice.

Faith"s scowl deepens. "I mean, is it for an old person, a young

person, fat or thin . . . what kind of person is this your . . . your "dead person"?"

"A poor one . . . Thus I want a cheap coffin – the cheapest you have."

The boy shuffles away disdainfully. "If he is that poor why not wrap him up in a mat and dump him in the hole . . ." "He is my father." The voice is grave.

"Then bury him well!"

"That is why I want a coffin."

"The "cheapest" we have."

"The old man won"t notice – he"s dead."

"Ah, then the mat would –"

"See, it is not just the crudity of interring a dead old man in a... in a mat, as you have suggested, but the sacrilege of it! A mat! A mat would be too disrespectful, and an expensive coffin, as you would have me buy, d.a.m.ned wasteful! For a dead person!" (he raises his voice higher as he drops into a deep soliloquy, ignoring the boy"s presence) "We waste too much money on our dead! – Parties! Bands! Food! Drinks! Noise! Noise! Noise! They are dead. DEAD! – they can"t hear us! They can"t! Ahhhhhh . . . ." (his voice suddenly dips to narration pitch) "Besides, a funeral ceremony is supposed to be a solemnest affair, not an avenue for the foolish flaunting of wealth that we make of it. In our funeral ceremonies these days, the "ceremony" is now given more emphasis than the actual funeral rites. Our funerals have now become pedestrian carnivals in which uniformed relatives, friends, pa.s.sers-by, well- and ill-wishers gather together to party, in the most unbecoming baccha.n.a.lian manner, spraying each other with crisp notes of the highest denominations of currencies from every part of the world, in the basest flagrant display of wealth, battling each other for social supremacy on the fresh grave of the dead, foolishly oblivious of the incongruity of this their madness to the funereal air of grief that is supposed to permeate the atmosphere of the funeral . . . They forget the verses of the poet, Emily d.i.c.kinson:

olubunmi familoni

The bustle in the House

The morning after Death

Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon Earth . . .

Oh, they forget . . . the only "bustle" that should be should be solemn, must be solemn! Funerals have been hijacked by hedonistic maniacs, fun-seekers, mad merrymakers and vile revellers of all shades . . . Where are the mourners? Where are the tears? Where?

Where! . . ."

The man is almost in tears himself by the end of this tirade.

Faith had just been watching, mouth and eyes wide open. He shakes his head sadly, and in silent pity, at the end of the monologue, muttering under his breath, "These small men that have nothing but their big-big English, they always end up crazy."

"What did you say?" the man asks, still not fully recuperated from his brief spell of madness.

"I said if you have chosen to bury your father cheaply who am I to object . . . This is the cheapest box we have . . ." He shoves a light, rickety coffin towards the man.

"Plywood?"

"Cheap."

"But . . . plywood. See, my father, he is a big man . . . no, not a Big Man like that; but big in size; he can"t possibly fit into this . . . and even if he managed to, it might just give before the actual interment, then the family"s shame would be out in the open."

"Well, sir, if you really want to keep your "family shame" intact I"ll suggest you purchase a coffin that will not break and spill it in the open."

"Nonsense! Frugality is the key! If the urban excesses of those metropolitan idiots that call themselves my siblings are not curtailed they will very well turn my father"s obsequies into one of their social or political s.h.i.+ndigs, with all the noise and frenetic festivities. . . Then the old man will not be able to rest, in perfect peace as he should. No!

I will not allow the atmosphere of sorrow that should envelop my father"s burial be polluted by any unnecessary pageantry, extravaganza, razzmatazz or untoward cheeriness!"

"But isn"t he their father too?"

"Nonsense! Where were they when he was walking through the valley of the shadow of death? And when he couldn"t walk anymore, while he lay in his death bed dying, where were they? Where, I ask you? Where! . . . I"ll tell you – in the city, that"s where they were; in the city making money and merry . . . Now that he is dead they want to come and throw their dirty money at his corpse, his dead corpse; they want to come and sully the purity of our sorrow with their filthy lucre! No! I will not let them! No way! No!" "Okay sir."

"So, how much is it?"

"What?"

"The coffin."

"Which?"

"This!" the man cries, banging the plywood coffin angrily

with the flat of his hand.

"Oh," the boy says, disappointed. "I thought I had been able to convince you into taking something more . . . more befitting for the poor old man.

"He is my father, and he is dead, so don"t speak ill of him."

"I am not speaking ill of him . . . I am just saying that . . . being your father, I think he deserves something better . . . something more

. . . more . . ."

"Oh, are you now going to be telling me what my father deserves or does not?"

"I"m just trying to sell my coffins, sir . . . I haven"t sold any all week."

"Ah you can"t expect to sell coffins here in the country, where people live forever, where the air is clean and the food fresh . . . Maybe if you moved to the city you would sell more; people die every day

olubunmi familoni

there, like chickens and dogs – dead on roadsides, on highways, under bridges, inside gutters, in hospital hallways and beds – dead, dead people everywhere, copious coffinless corpses; you"ll make a killing, my boy!"

He suddenly claps Faith on the shoulder in ghoulish excitement.

The boy winces, and murmurs, "I never thought of the city

like that . . ."

"Think big, my dear boy!"

"I"ll try," he says, casually casting the city"s corpses from his mind. "So, which are you buying?"

"This!" the man shouts, patting the plywood coffin.

"Oh," the boy mutters, crestfallen, disappointed in his own marketing abilities.

"Yes. So how much is it? . . . Now that we can say we"re friends, I would expect you to give me a friendly figure, eh." "Three-five," the boy says coldly.

"Three thousand, five hundred! For a coffin!"

"A cheap one – the "cheapest" we have."

"That"s brazen thieving!"

"That"s the price, sir."

"Okay, what is the last price, my boy?"

"That"s the final price, sir; it can"t go any lower."

"You"re not even going to bring it down one tiny notch?"

"That"s the lowest price, sir – the lowest in this shop."

"Okay, okay," he says, plaintively, "Take it down a little bit and

I"ll add something for you, my boy."

He shows the boy his dirty teeth, and gives him a wink.

The boy, irritated at being repeatedly called the man"s "boy"

in that condescending tone of his, replies, "I don"t take bribe, sir."

The man, affecting taken offence, exclaims, in his dramatic

high pitch, "Lord, no! I don"t give bribes; it"s a tip!"

"I don"t take tip. I earn enough money to keep me alive."

"Ah!" the man cries, now obviously exasperated. "You"re

going to grow old and die in this coffin shop with this kind of att.i.tude."

"At least I"ll have the dignity of being buried decently by my son."
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The man advances menacingly towards him, "I have a good mind to walk out of this place and never come back . . . but you"re lucky my father is dead, and has to be buried – in a coffin." "A cheap one," Faith mutters.

"What?"

"I said, which one."

"Three-five my foot!" he barks, kicking the plywood coffin. "Any local two-bit carpenter can knock this together in seconds . . . I"ll give you one thousand now and a balance of one-five when I come for it tomorrow . . . And make sure there"s a cross on it! . . . Here –" He tosses some notes on the coffin and leaves in a huff.

"The cross is extra five hundred o!" Faith shouts after him. "And your balance is three thousand!" He adds, under his breath, "Greedy old miser."

He shoves the money into his pocket and returns to his coffin in the dark corner. The warm, gentle pall of sleep soon falls over him, and he sinks under the sweet blackness as the curtains begin to drop on the day.

This time, his dreams are urban, set in the city, the city of plentiful deaths; many dead people everywhere, all around him . . .

* * *

Before the village resurrects the next morning, Faith is on the first bus to the big city, to meet his dead, leaving the coffin shop behind him, locked and forgotten; the poor old man"s plywood coffin in a dark corner, empty, crossless.

The miser"s money is warm in his pocket – it will be enough to take him to the city of death, and to make his first coffin, his first kill...