We were tossing ashes into the ocean today. Me, the sis, that guy and of course the ashes. Unfortunate that her birthday falls on the first day of summer. Would've preferred less bystanders to the act. Not a crowd but more than too many.
We didn't have much of a moment besides a bit of talk, some soothing words we knew had to be said, for solemnity's sake and maybe for ours, but it was a moment nonetheless. It was a moment out of our hands. It was likely illegal. I'll remember it fondly.
While we were tossing ashes into the ocean the sis and I had some ideas for some stories that neither of us may end up writing. A comedic sketch about a scattering taking too damn long. Boredom it becomes, and chore-dom. We were tossing it in handfuls, after all. That's a lot of handfuls. The passersby, the surfer a half dozen yards deep, they saw. They know. It's a lot. It's naturally comedic, the way the wind plays with us and it. The wind was against us. There's symbolism in that but we prefer to be amused.
In the nervous confusion about how best to be done with it, we wondered where else we could've spread the ashes. In a tanning bed. A lot of our story ideas settled upon inconvenient locations for a final rest. She liked tanning beds as much as the beach. It's an idea worth pursuing.
I yanked up out of the depths an old, old idea I had long before it was relevant. A passing-off of an urn from family member to family member until it lands in the lap of a kid who can't be bothered to properly dispose, so off he goes to school where he leaves the ashes in the grass field. A commotion ensues, confusion, cops. Still not sure the beach is any more proper but it was what she would have wanted.
