You better throw a party

by Annie Marhefka

is what my brother said when we planned our imaginary funerals. We were teenagers only, but it seemed like the subject of death was always present with him. Who knows? Maybe he knew. He wanted his life to be a party, and so he wanted his death to be a party. He wanted an unlimited open bar, and he wanted flair; he wanted the bartender to flip bottles in the air and set liquids aflame before pouring them down the throats of the mourners. He wanted shots, and he wanted us to toast to him before we slid them onto our tongues. He wanted the music loud—the knob cranked all the way right, a subwoofer vibrating the floorboards—and he wanted dancing. He wanted duets and choreography and props and mic drops. He wanted us to parade around in a line, crooning about his impossible feats—the way he had climbed the town water tower and spray-painted his full name yet still avoided the wrath. He wanted us to climb the water towers, spray-paint our own names, emblazon our very being on every surface we touched. He wanted uncensored mayhem, handstands, and karaoke, and just—laughter. He wanted color—the slick pink of a tongue wagging with glee, the yellow of a daffodil plucked from the forest floor by its bulb and replanted somewhere more visible, the vast green of a lawn that stretches into emerald fields. 

When the day came for his funeral, there was a blizzard, and the local news anchor said to stay home unless you had to be somewhere, so we thought everyone would stay home, but there was a line of cars pouring into the parking lot. The snow washed away the blackness of the asphalt and the blackness of the mourners’ coats and tumbled down upon our heads, a rain of white, white, white. I wanted to make it a party for him, I wanted to laugh for him, but it was all just colorless.

I stood there in the parking lot, dressed in black, a jagged contrast to the setting, and I stuck my pink tongue out for the snow because maybe it would turn the landscape violet with memory. Maybe it would burn cold. Maybe it would hold something of him.

Published February 11th, 2024