the blood of.....

creative writing assignment: Write about the funniest thing you've ever seen.

[and just because I am who I am, mine is a bit morbid. but still funny. and still to this day the funniest thing I've ever seen.]

A kind of numbness had settled over the house. In the past three days I had already witnessed things I never expected to witness. The first was my parents hugging. I was so shocked at the sight of this phenomenon that I nearly dropped my bowl of mac and cheese on the clean kitchen floor. The second was the sight of tears in my father’s eyes. I had inherited his stoicism so this was the more shocking of the two sights. His face was red and he wiped tears from his eyes as he calmly told my sister and I that his sister was dead.

The next few days were filled with white flowers and family meetings. Somehow I became in charge of the well being of all five of my young cousins. I was thirteen at the time, which clearly made me an authority on death. We all sat up in my room as I helped them draw pictures to put in her casket. Then we all sat at the top of the stairs listening intently at the “plan of action” for the service and what would become of her house and cat. My youngest cousin tapped me lightly on the shoulder and whispered, “When does Auntie Melissa get here?” I looked at her hopeful face and said, “She won’t.”

We passed the casket as we walked in and my eleven year old cousin Logan stopped and put his hand on it as we passed. I looked at him confused, scared myself to touch the casket and he looked at me and shrugged.

The two of us sat in the front row on the left side of the church with our older siblings. Everyone was sobbing as the service began but we just sat there, without a sound watching the faces of our fathers as they talked about my aunt.

I myself had made the decision that I did not want to be religious at this point in my life. When the priest asked us to come up to receive the body and blood of Christ I awkwardly stood up to walk up to eat the cardboard like bread. I didn’t want my grandma to have to think about the fact I didn’t want to be Catholic on top of everything else on this day. Logan followed closely behind me, confused because he had never been to church.

As I went back to the pew, I watched Logan receive the body of Christ and then walk swiftly over to the goblet of red wine. He took the glass from the priest and right there, in front of the church, he chugged the wine. The priest looked as though he had just watch him crucify Jesus. Logan looked at me and shrugged the same familiar shrug and I began to laugh. No one could hear me because of the loud organ. He smiled as he sat down and his teeth were stained red from the cheap wine.