The mourners marched into the circular luminarium carrying the departed, an elderly man, in some sort of a sling device reminiscent of a hammock with a board sewn into its white canvas to provide support for the body. The pallbearers, for lack of a better word, walked slowly along each side of the oval altar and lifted the man onto it. They lowered and released the cloth handles of the hammock, taking their seats in the semicircular pews directly in front of the altar. Elsewhere in the luminarium, about seventy people sat scattered about the room, all wearing black clothing—regular slacks and shirts, as opposed to the robes—that appeared to have be woven with threading that caught the lights of the luminieres sparkling along the perimeter of the room.
Though she took some comfort in the p
