It was jarring the first time Austin saw his uncle’s rotting corpse in the casket. It was an August day when his world once over flooded with thoughts and distractions were quieted, all he could acknowledge was his dead relative. It was like time froze, he couldn’t hear his heart beating, or himself breathing, even the sound of living. It was quiet.

 His uncle died from lung cancer, unsurprising since he smoked a pack a day. Everyone told him to stop, that it’s bad for his health and he should take better care of himself,  but now there’s only a lifeless shell to listen to their nagging. His mother pulled him away from the casket, she rubbed his back and a warmth unfurls in his heart tainted by sadness. The summer heat made the room unbearable, sweat was sticking to Austin’s neck. It was weird to think that his once lively uncle was so still, all stiff and formal in a navy blue suit. He looked small yet bold, it was hard for Austin to take his eyes off of him. 

All too soon the cremation process began and everyone rushed to place their hands on the coffin as it headed to the incinerator. And just like that, Austin’s calm mind burned away with his uncle’s corpse. The only thing that remained was the deafening cries of his family members. It wasn’t quiet.

A couple months went by and Austin attended another funeral. This time it was his old aunt who died, also from lung cancer. As Austin gazed upon her lifeless form, he finds his once disdainful memories of her tinged with nostalgia mixed with fondness. How odd. Learning his lesson from last time he gazed intently at her body, her wispy hair and hollow face. Wrinkled hands that used to cook for hours, and a loud voice that gave him nightmares. Now it was quiet, so very quiet. 

This moment, standing so close to death, there’s something about it that draws Austin in. Standing there in a daze he doesn’t register the chill in the funeral home from the autumn wind. All of his jumbled nerves dissolve into white noise, his being is stripped away until all that’s left is him, and his dead aunt. 

“Austin, honey are you ok?” 

Everything came rushing back, his aunt screaming at him, lecturing and lecturing, nagging and nagging. Oh how he hated her voice, so loud that he thought his ears would bleed. They would bleed, he tried to hide under the covers but she would drag him out, bony fingers piercing his sensitive skin. They were in the kitchen, it was hot, the stove was too hot, there was steam, so much steam, it was too hot too loud he couldn’t breath my ears hurt my head hurts it hurts it hurts it hur-

“I’m good mom, just… thoughts…” Austin doesn’t bother with a smile this time.

“My poor baby.” His mom ran her hands through his hair and he sagged against her side.

They sat down as speeches were sorrowfully recited, but his leg wouldn’t stop jittering and his shoes felt too small. His eyes clenched shut as he recalled the intensity of her quiet corpse. His feet get smaller, his bones shrinking and cracking into place. The weighted coldness seeps down from his heart to his shins, locking his legs in place. 

“When we get home I’ll make you some Earl Gray tea ok?”

Austin nodded, his legs are warm and too long, and now his socks are soaked with sweat. Even though it was the middle of Autumn he felt like he was overheating. Austin closed his eyes, when he gets home he’ll drink some tea, Earl Gray is his favorite. 

Winter has only just begun and there’s another dead body. The only difference is that it’s from drinking tea with bleach mixed in. It’s his older cousin Cathy and his life felt like it was going to wither away. His heart bursts and tears bleeds from his eyes, he furiously rubbed them so he can get one last look at her. Her curly hair all neat and tidy, her beautiful floral dress that she was going to wear to her wedding. Her once quiet but bright smile,wass now quiet and sad. 

    “The police said it was a suicide.”                        “She was always a little off.”

                      “She put bleach in her own tea?”

                                                   “Something must’ve been wrong with her.” 

“Now I know why her boyfriend wanted to leave so badly.”

                                                     “Hey, does anyone know what she wrote in her will?”

    “She better have put me in it. After all of her crap I had to deal with!”

Austin bit down on his tongue in order to consume his mind with something other than that garbage. It was his turn to get in front of the casket and basks in it. Nothing else mattered except this moment, this one moment he gets. He doesn’t have to listen to grating voices, his eardrums don’t ache or burst, and he can see clearly. He sees the important parts like the delicate way her hands are folded, the weight of her value as her soul departs from this world. This stupid, loud world. But it’s quiet now. It’s just him and her and the silence that blankets them.

It’s his grandpa who goes next, he goes while he’s sleeping, quiet and obedient. He might’ve woken up but it doesn’t matter in the end, he was weak, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to overpower Austin. He removes the pillow he was using and sets it down next to his gramps. It’s in the still of night when Austin lays down and feels so rested for the first time in his life. He thinks this is what he wanted, he should’ve done this the first time. It’s so nice and quiet.