He is still. He is silent. He is stiff. The casket is open revealing his colorless face and best clothes. Ryan lies in front of me, arms by his side, eyes closed. Mr. Belowl hangs his head, miserable with the death of his son. Ryan’s mother stands sobbing, her face tilted over the dead corpse of her son. His older brother stands with his mother; speechless with the hollow, aching feeling as he attempts to hold back his tears. As I watch the family grieve, I am nearly ashamed by my lack of sorrow.
The worst feeling of all is the lack of feeling. When a human knows they do not feel what they should they feel a numbing pain. This void of emotion is consuming me now. I stand alone; divided from the sea of depressed faces that fill the funeral hall. My lack of empathy almost brings me to tears, but I will hold back.
I've decided that not one tear will roll down my face for Ryan Belowl. He lied to me, day after day. "I'm going out for a bit; I'll be back soon. It's Boy's night out," he would say with a charming smile and a kiss on the cheek. I began to listen to his calls and check his E-mail. I checked the phone company for recent calls that he had made. They were all made to Laducia, Ryan's colleague and friend from Saudi Arabia. From what Ryan had told me, Laducia was a great business man with an admiration for architecture and mystery novels. I had never met Laducia, and I had no eminent desire to until I saw these calls. It was strange. All of the calls were minutes long; the longest at about five. Business associates need to talk about stocks and trades. They need to talk about investments and their employee’s productivity. They need to talk about sales growth and income percentages. I began to ask myself can this all be accomplished in a short, minute-long conversation?
I noticed that he left the house more often and for longer periods of time. It began with an hour or two when he went bowling and out for beers. It turned into three hours, sometimes four. He said he was "watching the game with the guys," but I knew better. I began to follow him. I followed his car to the bars and the clubs. I watched the blonde woman climb in and out of the car. I watched her kiss his lips and bring him to her apartment. I watched him walk in and I watched him walk out an hour or so later, disheveled and smiling. When he returned home, I was waiting for him. He seemed distant and removed while I attempted to act as if everything was normal. The blonde woman was Claudia. She had an admiration for architecture and mystery novels. She was not a business man from Saudi Arabia. Claudia was Laducia.
On a cold, fall night Ryan returned home and drank some coffee. I had brewed it myself. The coffee tasted a little funny. I told him it was a new vanilla bean flavor imported from France; he got a kick out of that. A few hours later, his body realized that his coffee was not comprised of French coffee beans in exotic vanilla flavors, but of a mixture of antifreeze and bleach. Like I said, I will never shed another tear for Ryan Belowl.
