Flirting Around a Coffin
Dear friends, writers, and poets,
You can find the elusive inspiration for your book or poem in any possible or impossible situation. Let your imagination go wild, but in such a way that fiction blends faintly with reality.
Here is an example:
Today, I went to a Funeral Home for a ceremony in memory of a long-time friend.
One large framed close-up of the deceased was set on a tripod by the door of the Visitation Room, where friends and family warmly mingled. A table with fresh berries looked inviting in the centre of this room.
Funerary events set me in a gloomy mood, so I retired to a corner to mull over life, being it too short and why dear friends and family leave us too soon. But then, I forgot everything because my eyes caught the silhouette of a woman standing by the table with the berries. She looked absent. Detached. Intrigued, I approached the table and grabbed a blackberry. The woman did not notice me. With a flashy gesture, I grabbed another blackberry, and this time, the woman looked at my fingers holding the fruit, then at my hand, and, following the length of my arm, our eyes met, and the blackberry exploded in my fingers. Oh, my! What a beautiful woman she was. She handed me a napkin and, with the undecipherable smile of a Mona Lisa, turned her back to me, and I lost her in the crowded room.
The ceremony for my friend was about to begin when I saw the woman passing swiftly as a shadow through one of the side doors. On an impulse, I followed her into a room. A white coffin raised on a platform lay at the centre, and a bouquet of lilies of the valley on a white-clothed table set in one corner accentuated the serenity of the ambience.
The woman was standing by the coffin. I moved towards her, intending to offer my condolences, but she moved to the other side of the coffin and stood there as if she were inviting me to a “catch-me-if-you-can” game. She placed her right hand on the coffin, and I couldn’t help but extend mine as if to catch hers, but she swiftly withdrew it. She giggled and moved around the coffin, and I followed her as if we were in a dance. We did all in silence, I must say, out of respect for the defunct, which, now that I think about it, was hypocritical on our part, given that we were openly flirting around the coffin at this point.
However, the arrival of one employee broke the spell. The man placed a large framed photo on a tripod and left.
I decided to return to the chapel, where the ceremony in memory of my friend was well underway.
As I walked to the door, I turned to wave goodbye to the woman, but she was not there. Puzzled, I retook my steps out of the room, but the framed photo caught my attention, and I froze in awe.
The photo depicted the woman I had been flirting with around the coffin just a few minutes before.
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Starting from one minor incident, you can transform it into a story, novel, movie, or anything. Try it and let me know how it goes for you.
