Phillip lay back with his eyes tightly shut, as if by closing off his sight, he could also shut down his mental hearing. Dark whispers of venomous insults wanted to burn out his eardrums with their verbal equivalent of poison. Mostly, he could drown those out. The knowledge that he had somewhere else he should be, and that by not rushing off earlier, he was letting not only others but himself down, was not so easy to dismiss. He told himself he was bad not only for wanting this, but also for wanting it now, this day.
If not now, then when?
Didn’t they say people f****d at a funeral? In a sense, he’d never stopped mourning, but instead of the loss of a human being, his grief was for all the things that might have been.
“Want this. Need this.” He was only vaguely aware that he’d whispered
