This is stupid. Why am I even here?

It’s not that I don’t like grieving family members. I love them more than anything, but I didn’t even know this girl. Nancy? Nancy I think her name was. I suppose she was some kind of talented singer at my school but my school is so big that I didn’t even know her.

They all asked me how I knew her and I said something about going to school with her but really, I didn’t know her at all. The only person who I told that to was Martha and I expected her to understand but instead she scrunched her eyebrows really tight and looked at me angrily.

“This isn’t about knowing her.”

“It’s a funeral.” I said in a hushed voice. “If they invited people who they don’t know, then it wouldn’t be a funeral anymore.”

“Whatever, Jack.” I could have let it go right then but it was just too tempting.

“What, were you her best friend or something?” Her eyes narrowed as I said that. “I didn’t think so.”

“I’ve told you, that’s not the point.”

Martha turned around and went to go comfort one of the people who actually knew her.

This is so ridiculous. I’d bet you half the people there didn’t know her either, and their moms made them go or they thought of it as just a chance to dress up fancy.

I know that’s what Tony’s funeral was like. People just came because they thought they’d look good in their tuxes and dresses. Mom recommended I wear something nice to this…event. But if I did, then I’d be just like everybody else there.

I know I’ve said this a few times, but why am I here? I know the answer. I’m here because people want me to be.

So I sat down on a bench, by myself, alone, away from everybody. But then somebody followed me.

“So how’d you know her?” The man sitting next to me said. He was old—or, well, one of those old people who looks younger than they are. Like Iggy Pop.

“Well she was in my math class. I didn’t really know her so…” I was on the verge of saying “yeah.”

“She was my grand daughter.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” I guess I meant it too. “How did she…?”

“Pneumonia.”

“Wow…that really sucks. Well if it helps anything, I had a friend once, a really close friend, Tony, you might of heard about it in the news or something, he died from a car accident.” Of course, It didn’t help anything and I shouldn’t have said it, but what was I supposed to say?

“I guess I didn’t really know her either. She had kind of a tough life. A couple of years ago her mom killed herself. She never knew her dad.”

“Who took care of her?”

“I did for a while. But we actually really talked. She was the quiet sort, you know? She just did her homework, ate, and slept. I guess for this past few years she didn’t have very many friends.”

“None at all?”

“Well, I guess. There was this one girl, Martha…but their starting the speech soon…”

The speech about her life was all on how her passion was singing, how she was quiet and she worked hard and she was good at math. But something tells me that’s all that anybody really knew about her.

She was a good singer, she worked hard and she was good at math.

How can you base a speech on that? How can you base a speech on the life of someone who you don’t even know? It beats me.

But I wasn’t really listening to all the stories about her life, I was looking at Martha. Martha, who I had known for four years and who never spoke a peep about Nancy, Martha, who basically said she didn’t know her.

Martha the saint.

Martha the liar.

When Martha cried, though, there was something more than sadness. There was guilt.

After the speech was done being given (the principal did it, and it seemed as if she didn’t know much about her either), she let people go up and talk about her. As soon as people stopped stating what little they knew about her on the stage, I walked up to Martha and gave her a hug. It’s best to start things off nicely, right?

“Oh my god Jack, first Tony…now Nancy…I don’t know what to do…” I kept the hug going for as long as I could, bracing for her reaction from what I was about to tell her.

“I heard you were friends with her.”

“Who told you that?” She said, backing away from the hug.

“Her guardian.”

“Filthy piece of trash.”

“I quite liked him, actually.”

“Why? He never gave a damn about her.”

“At least he could admit he didn’t really know her.”

“But he should have…”

“Should have what? She was a quiet nerd who sat in the back of the class. I’m sorry to say it but we all know it. She never said a word to anybody and no one ever said a word to her, do you think that maybe if we knew she was going to die we’d do something about that?”

“Pretending is better than--”

“What? The truth? Knowing admitting that we knew nothing at all about her? Because we didn’t, Martha. And you have to accept that.”

“Speak for yourself.” She was mad now.

“What was your relationship to her anyway? Her grandpa said that you got rid of her pretty quick.”

“I didn’t get rid of her. We just stopped hanging out!”

“Right. And if she was alive you’d say you dumped her. And now that she’s dead you’re saying you stopped talking to her.”

“What is it with you and trying to prove that humans are heartless?”

“That’s not the point!”

“Yes it is!” She said, standing up a little more on her tip toes for every word. “The point is, you don’t actually care what I was to her. All you care about is the fact that we feel sorry for not talking to her--”

“But you did talk to her.”

“Briefly, yes! But that hardly has anything to do with the fact that you feel as if everybody is…UGH!”

“All I want to know is why you stopped hanging out with her. That’s it.”

“I thought she was boring.” There was a fat bit of remorse in her voice.

“So you think that because you thought she was boring, it’s your fault she died?” Martha’s eyes stared right through me.

“Martha! She died of pneumonia! Nothing you could have done would have done anything because the fact is she’s dead, and you didn’t kill her! That’s all that matters!”

“All that matters is that she had a horrible life and--”

“You killed her? Then I killed her too because I didn’t talk to her, everybody killed her because they didn’t look far enough into her to notice she had problems.”

Martha had a sick smile smeared across her face.

“Your just bitter because of Tony.”

“No I’m not. That happened a long time ago, anyways. And people actually talked to him. Not like this.”

“So you’re saying that because Tony was social, we should miss him and because Nancy was shy we should forget about her?” She raised an eyebrow. “That’s a bit…Communist, Jack. Even for you.

“It’s just that if you got to know Tony you’ll see there’s a very…open part about him. But with this girl…she made no move to let people know she cared about anything.”

“Kill the weak and keep the strong. I see how you work.”

“Your missing the point, Martha! The point is, she was quiet and nobody knew her but you, and he was loud and everybody knew him. Obviously more people would have something to say instead of “yeah she was a hard worker.” Face it, Martha, that’s pathetic and rude.”

“I still don’t get why your being so bitter!” Martha took a few strides to the end of the room.

“It’s because we’re pretending to miss someone who we know we don’t! If she knew that somebody missed her she’d be happy, but all these people who pretend like they knew her and who feel sorry for her…It’s wrong, Martha, and you know it.”

“Then LEAVE! Nobody wanted you to come here!”

There’s really no point.

So I walked away. I didn’t look back.

It was a sunny day outside, kind of funny for a day of a funeral. But, then again, people die all the time. I suppose it makes no difference or correlation with the weather.

While I was riding on the bike home, I considered stopping at the graveyard for Tony. I hadn’t been there for a while and I thought it might be about time. I nearly did, but instead I rode past it. It just felt dirty to go while I hadn’t really cared about somebody else dying…

I’ll save it for another day.

A day when things aren’t so dismal.