They carry you far, in a wooden box, all tied up and pretty. You’re like a present. It’s as cold as Christmas.

They lower you into a cavity within the ground. It is slippery and we all wear scarves. Mine is blue. They took yours away. It was orange. I shut my eyes tight.

There’s a harsh wind and the dry crackling of leaves sounds like a cruel laugh. I am irrationally angry.

Your parents look like wizened versions of themselves; like figurines made from porcelain with cracks running through them. It’s a sea of colours in the middle of nowhere.

Your wooden box is now rapidly buried under lumps of semi-frozen soil. I watch, unblinking, until I can see it no more.

It’s real. It’s happened. It’s over. I can’t find my voice. So I turn around and walk away, leaving a pair of uncertain footprints in the snow.

The small things always get me.

You won’t be standing in your balcony anymore. I won’t wave at you from across the road while I wait to cross and you catch my eye. In the wee hours of the morning, I won’t hear your rubber slippers clapping against the concrete downstairs. In the night, there will be no sounds from your house next door – no opening and shutting of cupboards, or thuds on the floor from a book falling.

The newspaper carried your picture today. You were smiling and that’s how everyone remembers you. They said you will be buried today at 4. It sounds alien. It makes me lean out of my window and look towards yours to make sure that this isn’t a mistake. It isn’t. The curtains are drawn.

Everyone around you hoped that there’d be an end to your suffering. They prayed for your pain to cease. And it did. There’s only relief here on.

I heard your bangles clinking behind me, although I know you aren't there. The distant sound of glass on glass was so real, that I turned around to reach out for it. I almost believed for all of a second that you were standing behind me.

It wasn't unsettling but I did come and sit on my bed thinking about it longer than I thought I would. I wasn't spooked. I just wondered if at all you were there, somewhere. I remembered how you looked out of the window, with your elbows propped on the sill, at the lights and the crackers, this time of the year.

I thought of you yesterday when I was amidst all those people. I just wanted you to know that even though I stood expressionless when you left, I miss you more often that I let on. 

His hands smelled of coins.

He used bus tickets as book marks. His books were always covered with newspaper - the glossy classifieds section. His fingers were wrinkled and thin and when I held them my hands would get some of the coins smell.

In the night, he snuck into the kitchen and ate icecream; his favourite flavour was coconut. He stuffed peanuts into his pockets, and ate them with extreme relish while looking out of the window. He once told me he liked omlettes more than he liked chocolates and that was saying something.

He would take apart alarm clocks and hair dryers and irons only to put them together eventually. He should have been an engineer. He loved gadgets. His electric shaver is still sitting somewhere in my cupboard, unaware that no-one will care for it with the same intensity again.

If he was here, I'd have shown him my writing. Of all the people I know, he'd be the only one who'd have understood it just the way I'd have wanted him to. 

In Memoriam.

The small things remain behind.

The thin glass bangles that went up and down wrinkled arms.

The cotton saris that had softened over time; that had been speckled with stray marks of our childhood.

The books, dog eared with age, sitting next to a pair of runaway spectacles.

The familiarity will be missed; of having her in the house and of her quiet enthusiastic presence. The room will be empty for a while and the bed sheets will smell of her. In the night, I will find myself searching for the soft thump of her footsteps.

Earlier today, the thick metal shutter of the incinerator came down, swallowing her whole into its fierce stomach. I stood outside and watched her life become dust in a glass jar. 

It was a full life; one that not many people witness. 

The ashes will find themselves in some holy water body somewhere. In the meantime, she is far away - much happier and in no pain.