It was far. Real far away right in front of her; arm unfolded but there was nothing to touch. Nothing living anyway. Just lips and lids glued shut and hands placed and cemented just so. Right over left over bellybutton. He was left-handed. Had been left-handed. Left hand scorched the right side of her face because she never could turn away. Prey turns and runs; keep eye-contact, keep your ground, keep posture and the big-cat doesn't see prey - it sees, unsure, a potential threat. But it's unsure so it keeps batting, testing boundaries. A threat would tear in and fight and prey would either run or die so what was she? What was the compromise in the world of the eater and the eaten? She didn't know. She knew nothing. Everything she had known before was dead, swallowed up in memories she wanted forgotten. She knew nothing so where was she and why was she there? Embedded reflexes were rendered obsolete in an onsite accident, some so deep they etched her bones and there were no reserves. None for where she found herself. Freedom, most had told her, continued to tell her, regurgitated again and again until it stopped sounding like a real word. Just sounds a mouth makes, its meaning was stripped like she was when her world ended. Onsite accident, set number-of-days back to zero. The proverbial they had done their best to fill in his skull, it was bulging on the right side, his right. His wrong to disregard a hardhat. It had cost him but she was the one it had buried. She could crawl into his cubed feet of dirt and the earth had no bias to know the difference.

"You glad?"

Small voice at her hip had snuck in beside her. She looked down but there were no eyes, just a combed head of hair, the eyes were busy on the casket. She hadn't been tending to her state of gladness but candor begot honesty and she was honestly devastated.

"No."

She was detached, displaced from tangibility but she managed to put a phantom arm around their child and lead him back to the front pew.