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I never understood why a corpse would need such a pretty box if it
was just going to be buried. When my goldfish died, we flushed it
down the toilet.
It was in the church, my aunty was giving her speech. I still
remember my mother’s face when she was making her eulogy, cold
as rock, shocked probably. I was looking at the stained glass windows
around me, not wanting to look at the dead body. When my aunty
was nearly finished, I knew because I had heard her practising, I
accidentally looked at the body. Her thin, grey hair was pulled back
and she wore a green, floral dress. I just realised I was staring at the
body, when a limp hand flopped onto Grandma’s chest. I blinked
hard then looked at my mum to see if she’d noticed. She was staring
straight ahead but she felt me look at her, pulled me closer and
whispered, ‘It’s okay, Mollie.’ I decided I was just imagining things,
so I ignored it.
At the burial, everyone was dressed in black, holding dark
umbrellas sheltering them from the harsh weather brought down
from the miserable, grey sky. I never knew my grandmother, but I
was there in black clothes like everyone else and the only thing I
understood was that my Gran, who I’d never met, had gone to
Heaven, where the angels lived.
A week later, we were cleaning out my grandmother’s house for
selling. The building was quite grand. Outside were small shrubs
amongst clumps of purple flowers. We stepped inside and I noticed
the chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. The air seemed
unnaturally cold, as if a breeze was coming through the closed
windows. The building was quite elegant, and, like an old person,
gentle and homely except for the cold. I was looking around when
my mum told me to start clearing out the attic. I skipped up the
dusty, staircase and climbed the step-ladder to an attic.
The room matched the rest of the building by look; old and
elegant, but it was more cosy and smelt like old people. I fumbled
around before finding a long cord hanging from the ceiling. I pulled
it and on came a dim orange light from a dusty light bulb. The attic
seemed to be my grandma’s favourite spot in the house, maybe that
was why the house was so dusty. It seemed odd that she chose to live
most of her life in a dark, dusty room since the house was so large. I
started to collect my Gran’s things. To be honest, the roomwas quite
messy. I started to collect her personal belongings first, thick glasses
Gran’s Red
Diary
Sindhu Velaga
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