Hugo, Part 1

The snow stormed down white and furious. It was a cruel thing, the snow, ruthlessly suffocating the budding leaves that were gently swaying in the warm breeze of spring. It trampled down on the blooming flowers without hesitation, and consumed the bright green trees in a matter of seconds. The thing was fast. There was no hesitation, no empathy in softly and gently, yet clearly killing the blooming new lives. It did not let go, and when someone tried to make it do so, it only clung on drastically, leaving behind no hint of what little gentleness and softness it had.

Hugo peered down at the white snow in despair. So it had been true, what Jarred had said. He regretted not listening to Jarred’s advice. He regretted discomposing Jarred. Most of all, he regretted making Christopher. This was all his fault. The snow, the sinking, Christopher. Anna’s funeral.

Anna’s funeral was just like Anna. Black, gloomy, and damp were the adjectives that had always preceded Anna’s name. Even he, Hugo had once called her ‘Gloomy Anna.’ Of course, he had regretted that as soon as he said it but he didn’t let it show. She didn’t seem to mind anyways, so he never apologized for that. He would have apologized sometime though, when he could understand why he said it. But she died before he could figure it out, so he never apologized for calling her ‘Gloomy Anna.’ Still, it wouldn’t matter that much, since she always said she was okay with hearing those stuff and she was used to it. Something that you’re used to doesn’t hurt you, right? And then, she was never really hurt by them anyways. So Hugo didn’t apologize at Anna’s funeral.

Everyone else did, though. They came to the funeral and apologized to a box that was supposed to be Anna. Technically speaking, they never apologized to Anna either, because they apologized to a box, not Anna. Everyone agreed that the box would be Anna, but it was not Anna. It was a box. It was a rather gloomy, black, and damp box, but it was a box. And boxes are not people, period.

A weird man that looked like half his face had been scrunched between the elevator doors and the other half had been melted in fire came up in front of the box when there was no one left to apologize to the box that was meant to be Anna. He started to read some apologies that some people could not say out loud, and wanted it to be read out by another person’s mouth. It was mostly the same old boring ‘sorry for calling you black or gloomy or damp, I wish you a better life there.’ Hugo wanted to ask where ‘there’ was, since everyone was assuming Anna would go there. Anna always wanted to go to Spain and if she had gone to some other place that was not Spain, it would be quite a nice place. Anna did have excellent taste in everything.

Just when he was considering whether he should stand up or not when he asked the question, someone barged through the door. The door hit Hugo’s head, since he was the one sitting right in front of it. The person did not apologize. Hugo didn’t care about it, since he wasn’t such a person to be annoyed by such a petty thing. It hadn’t hurt that much anyways. The aching feeling would go away soon.

The man went up to the podium and pushed the weird-looking man out of the speaking arena. The weird-looking man toppled over the mike and fell on the floor flat on his face. When he stood up- with the help of the man who tried to reach for the mike and untangled the two in the process- his face was even weirder than before. Now the side that looked like it had been melted in fire was squished like a bunch of pancakes stuffed in a small box. Everyone laughed. They laughed. They came to see Anna go, to say a farewell for the last time, and they laughed. The spot where Hugo had been hit by the door did not stop aching.

“Fuck you,” the man said into the mike.

The people laughed even more. The spot where Hugo had been hit by the door ached even more. He must have been hit harder than he had thought.

“Seriously, fuck off. You don’t even want to be here. You don’t even mean the stuff you say. You don’t even give a shit about what happened to Anna. So why are you here? Just fuck off. Get out of this place!”

The man was screaming his head off by the end of his short lines. That did it. The crowd fell on the floor, uncontrollably laughing, as if the scene in front of them was the most hilarious thing that they had ever seen. Hugo did not like it at all. They were being too loud, and his ears hurt. Anna didn’t matter. His head was aching like mad, and the pain washed Anna out of his head. He wished all of them would disappear into wisps of snow, like he had done to Jarred.

Everything went black, like Jarred’s eyes when Hugo plugged off the cords. All sounds were eliminated, and the only thing left in the funeral room was Hugo and darkness. When light was given back to him, all that was left of the rowdy crowd was thin snow, that were dissolving into the air as if a snake were slipping into its prey’s habitat- just like Hugo had been imagining just a few seconds- or maybe hours- the darkness had taken away his sense of time altogether with his senses- ago. Everyone, the laughing audience, the funny-looking man, the screaming man, and Anna had disappeared into wisps of snow.

Hugo’s head didn’t hurt anymore. And he was happy.

#stellakim #fiction