Wake

He was lying there, still. On a table in the centre of the living room. Everyone was wearing black. Everyone was sad.

A plate of sandwiches was passed around, I took one with cheese and mayonnaise in it.

He was my Granddad.

Everyone was talking, quietly as if not to wake him. Talking about him. About what he did, who he was, where he'd gone. Every now and again, someone would turn and look at him.

In the corner, there was an old man. He had what I thought was a lump of lard in his hands. He took a knife, and started carving it.

Long milky ribbons curled and fell. He wasn't wearing black, just a deep grey and a flat cap. I took a sandwich and walked to him.

He stopped, and looked up above his thick glasses.

"For me?"

I nodded. Biting a corner of my sandwich.

"Cheers, young man. You... Ah. You're Paddy's son?"

I nodded again.

"Sit down. I... I got a story to tell ye."

I did as he said, kicking my feet. He kept carving.

"I knew your Granddad for a long time. He was my brother you see, not... by blood but we -- We met in the war. Only two fools in that Hell from this town."

His carving slowed as he chuckled. The chuckle faded.

He kept carving.

"We came back. Not many did. Not whole at least. I'm sure they'll teach you that in school. What they won't... is whenever someone died."

He looked at me. I looked at him. We had a short stoic moment of silence.

"Whenever one of us died, one of ours, we'd carve a pipe. A wax one. Like this. Our Grannies and Granddads did that back in their day. You could only use it once. The tunnel through, you see? That'd melt. Collapse like a cave."

He sniffed, and sniffed again.

Looking back, I think he was trying not to cry.

Instead, he kept carving.

The hunk of wax, not lard, was starting to form into something thinner. Thinner and thinner, into a single ornate shaft. Engraved with my Granddad's name and another.

The man pointed at it and said:

"That's me."

He smiled looking at it.

"I don't like- carving these. I've gotten too good at it."

He ate his sandwich while looking for the missing pieces. A match and some long dried, long dead leaves. He cleaned up the mess he made too. I sat there, just watching.

He came back, and lit the pipe. It took a few pulls but, he became a dragon. Spewing bellowing streaks of dusty grey and rings that whirled around.

I'm at his wake now.

Some fifteen years later.

Uncle Gar's on the table.

And I...  Well, I have a lump of wax and a knife.