at the wake the house is a hushed shuffle of elements that can’t mix the young and old stirred together but separating like oil and water the fatigue and grief in their faces the same but coming from different places the older generation thinking doesn’t it ever stop and don’t they know how hard it was for us and the younger ones thinking this one and that one and the next and who’s next and Jamie standing outside to smoke with the other young men and blackly says nothing and wishes he didn’t have to go back in there to face his friend and closer than brother lying grey in the living room in his suit with the candles burning he was getting too far into the life one of the boys says and Jamie is black his spine holds blackness and he can only see as if through blackness he’s going to tear whoever did this apart and he has to go back inside where the old people shoot him looks that drive him further into himself why do those kids have to do these things one of them says and hasn’t there been enough dying already and Jamie can only see black and can only pick up a glass to try and be normal and then he thinks of the bullet in the back of his friend’s head and he doesn’t even hear the crack of glass he’s only surprised by the liquid that suddenly drenches his bleeding hand