His funeral is at 3:00. What do I do?
I do not want to go, but I feel as if I should go, merely because I know that people will be questioning me on Monday as to why I didn't, and I will feel as if I need to lie so people do not think badly of me.
It may be somewhat hypocritical to attend - we barely talked, we exchanged nicities and annoyances, I have grieved for him and accepted, he is dead, yes, but it is an eventuality...
It was a terrible way to die - drowning - but could I sit there and hear strangers emulate his qualities that I never knew? Hear them speak of his compassion, his humor, things that I saw fleetingly or that irritated me while he lived?
I knew him and he is dead - I saw him and he is dead - I spoke to him and he is dead - am I to be accused that I have no compassion, no respect, simply because I do not wish to hear them speak of a person that I did not intimately know?
I have thought of the things we did together, the things he's said - how he loved my voice, low, intelligent, authoriatative - how he threw staples in my hair and laughed maniacally at my chagrin, how I should have been kinder to him, how he should have been kinder to me.
I do not need to go to a funeral for myself, to cry (I have), to validate my memories of him, to see everyone grieve, to feel guilt at his no longer being here. He died, I lived, there is no reason to this, no explanation, he was unlucky, it is unfair.
He had a passion for life, for love, that I respected. He had many other qualities that I did not.
I am blushing - in shame, maybe, at my truthfulness, in the excitement that I am being so raw and honest, I don't know really why - I could not sit there blindly and watch others mourn and pretend. My heart is pounding sickly.
I knew him and he will become dust. It would be terrible to go and sit with those that loved him far more than I, to see them put handkerchiefs to their faces, to express my sympathy at their loss, to twist my face into a visage that looked morose and which professed my condolences. I would sit there in a black dress and a shawl and dark shoes and think of the pointlessness of life and farcity of religion, cynical and nihilistic - Ivan Karamazov to the last - and this, I think, would not be an honor but a detriment to him.

Julian was dead. She remembered how he had stretched lazily in his chair, unconcernedly, like a large contented cat, how he had laughed and joked and smiled and talked about girls crudely and passionately and adoringly. How he had never expected (why would he) that that day would be The End, the summation of every moment, every thought, his plans and possibilities all strangled, snuffed, that people would cry and moan and sob and he would never see it, would not care, would simply cease, would be put into the earth and there rot. Poor, poor Julian. Never again would he see the sky or smell the overripe flowers, feel the air or watch the street glow with the dim streetlights, never see the red of the sun or of the sea or watch a fish’s gills flicker, scales shimmer, shatter, never hear the crying of children, the slow movement of a woman’s round arm or ankle, never hear the rustle of bags or slow hum of a car passing lazily by at night. He would be eaten by small, burrowing, eyeless creatures and never feel the prick of their round teeth or straining jaws. He was nothing, would remain nothing, and would be remembered dimly by most or slowly forgotten.

Wiled away the afternoon reading Kafka's Diaries. Feel infinately for Kafka, find him fascinating, can empathize completely.
Cleaned pool at father's command, a task so mindless and vaguely frustrating that it left me unfulfilled and yearning, even, to take a shower...
Grad Nite an utter disaster, only one entertaining moment, the rest repellant, friends boring and uninteresting, found Linsey in the gift shop and was alarmingly moved by her arrival, her long brown hair tumbling around her thin shoulders and eyes veiled with fatigue, Elaine's face alive with glitter and a coy but somehow disturbed smile, found Greg's teasing and obsession with Tina irritating to the extreme, hated, again, Melissa and Tia's ability to ignore me and the resurgence of childish attitudes and ideas.
Cannot wait to finish high school. Find it heartening that I will never see most of them again.
Take a breath and it whines like a sigh through my nose, slightly cold and stagnant. I love reading Kafka aloud - it was the way he meant it to be, anyway - it seems to heighten the meaning when the words can be given new voice. My father's voice from the other room is low and the sounds blend into a single but fragmented note.
Not a single call the entire weekend. Everyone is probably sleeping off Grad Nite. My father asks me again to burn his CD. I agree, though I know that I have no intention of doing so.