January 9, 300

“As Rhetoric Around Lyman’s Nationhood Shifts, Diverging Futures Take Shape on the Ballot”

“Nearly a century ago, in the dawn of the 200s, the attitude of Lyman changed dramatically.”

“The primary cause was the release of the 210 Census results, showing that the population had finally breached 100,000, but the tonal shift was already present. The Red Cancer epidemic, which devastated younger generations for more than a century, had all but abated, and in the year before, the computer had successfully been recreated by engineers.”

“The sense that society was readying for a takeoff swept the population, and by massive margins, they overhauled the system of government in 212. The mayor’s title changed to governor, the size of the City Council was doubled to 110, and the five District Councils were formed.”

“But after a long century of major technological advancements, that excitement has now hit a devastating reality: it was never meant to last forever.”

“The last of Earth’s major technologies, the smartphone, is nearing the markets. The supply chain is buckling under its own weight. An incumbent government that has failed to achieve its key promises is under a tide of backlash. And the people have never been hungrier for change.”

"But the question is, are they truly prepared for it?"

“The city of Lyman is now viewed by much of the people to be a fully developed country, and its governor a president. This rhetorical shift has manifested on February 3’s ballot, particularly in the amendments they approved. But the shift is coming at a cost that nobody could have expected just a few months ago.”

"As far as we know, Lyman and its doomed offshoot North Manmau are all that humanity has on this planet. Fears of the coming election destabilizing and possibly ending the centuries of progress made here is unprecedented, and, if somehow prescient, would have consequences far more devastating than they ever could have had on Earth. That's what makes the ballot in February so crucial."

"It goes without saying that this many major candidates and this many consequential ballot measures are not normal in a democratic society. Any kind of mixing and matching of governors, legislatures, and approved referendums would have wildly divergent outcomes that can set us on potentially thousands of paths forward, so it might be useful to cut through the passions and understand what all of the choices actually entail. So settle in."

"As things stand, Governor Antonis' reelection campaign is on life support. With an approval rating in the low 30s and a long eight years of partisan mudslinging that have crashed federal politics, he is still running on many of the promises that catapulted him into office in the first place. Some of them—major expansions of housing options, overhauling aging public infrastructure, forming a commission to investigate police corruption, and implementing ranked-choice voting—remain widely popular, but they've largely disappeared from the platforms of his ideological successors."

"But even if he survives February, a different set of priorities will await him. The challenges of working with a prospective second legislative chamber will almost certainly be dominant for a leader who has had little success compromising with lawmakers. Adjusting the government to the changes brought by any of the other ballot measures will be especially difficult under that scenario, particularly regarding firearm regulations."

"And that's all assuming the money referendum isn't also approved, for that will be the dominant issue under any administration. Only David Taggart and Wayan Jesus have explicitly come out in support of it, but they will have little to work with without an ideologically aligned coalition in the legislature. It's most outspoken opponent, Braam Tijn, also hasn't gone into detail of what kind of economic policies he would pursue if the referendum succeeded. Mark Andrews and Kenina Gibson have favored moderate and long-term economic adjustments to avoid too large of a swing, but the voters who would approve the referendum might also write in its conservative proponents next to it on the ballot who won't share that vision."

"If the anti-establishment movement led by Mr. Tijn leads him to prevail in the election, so too, paradoxically, will the measures to enforce limits on food and water consumption, at least according to polling averages. That on its own will present major challenges to the government's credibility, especially if the internet becomes privatized as well. Mr. Tijn will be forced to walk a delicate line between libertarian small government and necessary state intervention in public consumption habits, and any misstep will equal a flurry of damaging criticism. But if none of those measures succeed, Mr. Tijn may fall into the same pit as Governor Antonis and spend the next four years battling for political survival."

"That scenario will be even worse for the more ambitious gubernatorial candidates. Kenina Gibson's key promises all rely on effectively imperializing Lyman and building further out into the continent, but her goals will be dead in the water without a compliant legislature. If a second chamber is approved by voters, conservatives and libertarians will almost certainly have an edge in representation, posing an even bigger headache."

"If David Taggart is elected without a right-wing coalition to back him up, it would be reasonable to expect a lengthy and bitter deadlock on any government policy or regulations, which could spell political disaster if it comes alongside any local non-conservative-backed referendum victories that he has said outright he will not support as governor. That could mean four more years of the economy continuing its slow spiral into chaos, including a potential impeachment battle that some leaders have floated pursuing."

"Mark Andrews may have the easiest time working with ideologically opposed coalitions in the legislature. The spirit of bipartisan cooperation has been central to his messaging and may pay off as the last stretch of the election approaches. But in the best case under that scenario, he loses the institutional backing of his liberal supporter base and is portrayed as a sellout. But if he manages a majority sympathetic to his STEM- and education-based platform, he will only have the chance to thrive if every ballot measure is rejected and his attention isn't forcibly redirected."

"And Wayan Jesus will be riddled with problems no matter the hand he gets dealt. He's worked hard to tailor the image of a moderate conservative, but as the conservative voter wing grows decidedly less moderate under the rise of David Taggart, he may come under pressure within his supporter base to take larger swings on implementing either his own agenda or any approved ballot measures. Meanwhile, in a divided government, Mr. Jesus will be forced to back off his more right-wing positions to keep things running. In either case, he faces backlash from the forces that brought him to power unless he takes a harder line."

"The broader picture of Lyman here is a people at a dramatic crossroads. Any choice between just two candidates for governor and just one of the current referendums would be cause for considerable attention at any other election before this. One thing is clear though: the way the ballot has taken shape is evident that the people have grown tired of relying on Earth as the sole guide for how to direct the sails of progress. The time of looking behind us is well over. The only thing that’s unclear is how this will translate into an official mandate for the next four years.”

“Will voters put their faith once more in Governor/President Antonis to lead them through whatever hand he’s dealt by the ballot referendum? Will they look outwards and choose a rapid territorial expansion under Kenina Gibson? Will they choose to consolidate and repair the existing city under the platform of either Mark Andrews or Wayan Jesus? Or will they turn their passion towards the government and either wield its massive sway over society with David Taggart or cut down its authority with Braam Tijn?”

“The election may deliver no mandate to any vision. The current even split in polling between the candidates may hold, and a leader may be elected that the majority did not want. But it remains certain: Lyman is changing fast, and the status quo will be struck down in dramatic fashion come February 3.”

•••

What would it be like if I died? Would there be a funeral? Who would hold it? Who would attend it? Would my classmates? Would my former caretakers? What would that funeral even look like? Would they play music? Would anybody know my music taste enough to know what music to play? Would my death even affect anyone other than Graham? Is Graham physically capable of crying?

These questions rotated through my mind as yet another text from Harold Jefferson’s wife appeared on my messenger. All I did was answer a few questions about what he was doing when I saw him the day he died and make the stupid decision of giving her my messenger ID, and she’s been hounding me with updates about his funeral that I didn’t ask for ever since.

Once Graham heard the notification sound followed by my groan, he said from the couch, “She’s still on it, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Christ. Does batshit insanity run in the Jefferson bloodline?”

“That’s ableist.”

“You’re ableist.”

I resumed scrolling through the Lyman Press front page at my computer on the counter. I was specifically looking for any updates on election polling, but the only recent one was six days ago for the governor candidates.

“Kenina Gibson: 18%

Mark Andrews: 17%

Giorgos Antonis: 17%

Wayan Jesus: 16%

Braam Tijn: 14%

David Taggart: 9%

Undecided/Write-In: 9%”

Opinion polls on the ballot measures are only minimally useful since more than a third of those polled are unsure about each one. Only the referendum creating the bicameral legislature has an approval rating above 40%.

Within a minute, the messenger dinged again. I ignored it.

“Manufacturers, Hampered by Production Delays, Put Smartphone Release at Mid-March.”

I can only hope they allow me to change my fucking ID so I can safely escape people like this.

It dinged a third time. I muttered out loud, “Oh my god,” and opened the messenger.

Heidi Jefferson: Hi harolds funeral will be held at 4 pm today and i think it would be nice if you and your friend came to honor him

Heidi Jefferson: His whole family will be there and his son but yeah you 2 should come

Heidi Jefferson: If you want to of course

I sighed. “She wants us to come to Harold’s funeral in an hour. Jesus Christ.”

“Damn. And she waited this long to invite us?”

“Apparently. Why would we even come, though? We interacted with him once, and it went horribly.”

“Because they’re crazy. And I doubt anybody else is coming.”

“She said his whole family is going to be there.”

Graham perked up. “The whole family? Goddamn, what’s Harold Jr. like? Or his mother?”

“Terrible. Awful. Not even willing to find out, just labeling.”

“Whoa, are you trying to out-bigot me? I will start busting out the racial stereotypes if I have to.”

“I don’t think I would want to test your knowledge of racial stereotypes.”

“Goddamn straight.”

I glanced at my messenger with a hint of dread. “Shit. What should I tell her?”

Graham leaped off the couch. “That we’re coming, obviously.”

For a second, my brain processed that as a joke, partially because that’s what I wanted it to be. Then I remembered who I was talking to. But despite this, just for clarification that wasn’t required, I still said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“Get your goddamn suit and tie prepared. You and I are going to the Pale Garden Cemetery.”

The best I could do was sigh. It was hardly worth getting up in arms about if he’s coming as well. “Has anybody ever told you that your decision-making is incredibly sporadic?”

“Few others have stuck around long enough to find out. Now where did I leave my goddamn fedora at?”

The Pale Garden Cemetery doesn’t get a lot of visitors. Of Lyman’s dozen-or-so cemeteries, Pale Garden is among the smallest and least desirable places for families to bury their dead. Part of that is because of climate, because no matter what time of year it is, the entire section of town is always cold and wet. Part of that is because of elevation. Pale Garden is among the lowest points of Lyman, and is thus the focal point where nearly all of the rain flows to, soaking into the field and probably the graves underneath it too. It has an unspoken reputation as the place where people bury their least respected relatives.

And it’s for that reason that the owners have never bothered installing a parking lot. There’s one unrefined dirt road beside the graveyard and a gravel clearing just past it big enough to fit ten cars at most. Four were already parked, meaning either four random public drivers are attending the bootleg funeral, or four family members somehow became certified public drivers. I’m still operating on the assumption that all of them are crazy, so the latter possibly being true is a little terrifying.

We got dropped off at the beginning of the driveway, giving me and Graham an extended minute to prepare before leaping into the action. About eleven people appeared to be present and hanging around a canopy at the back of the clearing; a little awkward considering Harold’s death just made front page news. None of them saw us as we walked down the road.

Graham whispered as if they could hear us, “Look at them. They think they’re so much better than us that they can just not look in our direction as we slowly walk toward them. Fucking elitists.” After a moment of silence, he said at normal pitch, “I wonder how this particular wacky situation will find some way to tie back to the February election for you.”

“Well, Harold was a candidate for district representative. He didn’t exactly have a stellar shot at winning, though.”

“Yeah? And which of the current goons running for president would he have thrown his weight behind?”

“The article about him didn’t say, probably because there was little to find. But based on the way he looked and acted? Probably Tijn.”

“You can tell someone’s voting preferences just by the way they look? How much of a fucking nerd about this are you?”

“I could tell you just by looking whom all of these people ahead of us are voting for. Politics is a lot less convoluted than it used to be.”

Graham pointed ahead at an old guy leaning against a car. “That guy. Who’s he voting for?”

He was giant but a little fat, was wearing a fancy two-piece suit jacket and dress pants, had slicked-back grey hair, and looked generally unpleasant to be around. “Definitely Taggart.”

“The Nazi? Damn, alright. What about that bundled-up one in the corner?”

He pointed to a woman sitting alone in a row of chairs under the canopy wearing a tight hijab and an Indian-style dress, whose skin looked scarily pale. Everybody else around her was dressed in basic white-people funeral attire. “She wants to vote for Gibson, but is going to be pressured to vote for whomever her husband does.”

“Yikes, patriarchy. What about those two old women?”

The women in question were talking by a podium in front of the chairs under the canopy. They looked almost identical aside from their outfits, probably siblings. One of them had to be Heidi, but I couldn’t tell who. They both had plain black dresses, but the one on the right had sleeves, a belt, and held up closer to the neck. The left woman had short hair, and the right woman kept hers in a bun. “Left one is Antonis, right one is Jesus.”

"Holy shit. I don’t even know anything about those names, but it still sounds right.”

At this point, we were too close to the gathering to continue the game.

The giant Taggart voter noticed us and walked over. He stopped a couple of feet away, and Graham and I had to arc our heads at least 30 degrees up to meet his eyes. "Who are you?" he grumbled.

I answered, "Heidi invited us. We're the grocery sector people."

He stared blankly at me for an uncomfortable amount of time. I lightly yawned to fill the awkward silence as he internally deliberated. He then turned around and walked back to the car he was leaning against.

Graham whispered, "See, at first, I didn’t know what you meant. When I pictured it in my mind, it didn’t quite make sense. The rationale just didn’t add up to me. But now? When I look at that guy, all I can see is a Nazi general staring at a line of dead slaves."

"Glad we’re on the same page."

Also standing around the gravel clearing was a scrawny blonde middle-aged guy with heavy facial hair and glasses wearing flannel, a grade school-age child in a checkered dress shirt and bow tie, probably that kid’s teenage brother in a plain black hoodie, a blockheaded stumpy guy in a backwards baseball cap and fraternity jacket, a skimpy woman who looked like a model in her 20s in a tight and short dress, a very old Catholic bishop, and some guy who looks barely old enough to drink with shaggy hair and a mink coat. It was difficult to decode the scene in front of me.

One of the women under the canopy that must have been Heidi noticed us and started rushing over, waving the whole way over. As was the case with Harold, it was hard to tell if she was old or had just aged terribly. "Hi! Hello! You are... Finn?"

Graham answered, "Yeah. And that other guy Graham."

"Okay! The proceedings will begin in a few minutes, come sit down if you want!" She turned and rushed back to where she was.

Graham remarked, "She's awfully upbeat for her husband's funeral."

I said, "I have my full name on my messenger profile. She saw that name every time she messaged me. And for that brief second there, she forgot what my name was."

"It's either a Pale Garden thing or it's a Jefferson thing. In whatever case, Satan is very much with us."

Graham walked over to the guy with the blocky head, who was having a one-sided conversation with the teenager staring at the fenced-off graveyard. He cut them off by unnecessarily shouting, "Hey, you! Flatface! With the cheekbones!"

The guy who knew he was being referred to stop talking and looked at us, putting on clear display just how wide and protruded his cheekbones were.

"I think I saw the anvil that attacked your head as a baby somewhere behind that car there."

The guy kind of chuckled. "Uh, what?"

"I'm telling you to scram. Beat it. Vaminos. Vai fuori di qui. Хвърлете чантите си и скочи от кораба, преди да съм изстрелял шибана ракета в гърлото ви."

The guy stared at him blankly.

"Go somewhere else, you fucking virgin! I wanna talk with the teenager."

He shrugged and walked away.

The teenager looked a bit concerned. "Uh... hi?"

"Teenager. What's your name so I don't have to call you teenager?"

"Braden."

"I should have fucking known, every teenager is named some stupid shit like that. But I digress. First of all, I think I may have gotten in over my head when I decided attending this was a good idea. I'm here because you seem like you could be a fair broker of information about the situation. I'm getting mental illness/Satanic vibes from everywhere but your direction, and I think I'm going to need your input to make it through this. First order of business: what's everyone's name here?"

"Shit... well, that guy you shooed off was my dad Steven."

Graham snorted, "Your fucking dad just listened to some stranger tell him to fuck off so he could talk to his child and obeyed with no questions? Holy fucking shit."

"...Yeah. My mom Grace is standing over there with her twin sister Heidi. My mom is the one with the bun."

"The one voting for Jesus. Got it."

"The catholic guy is Randulph, he's just a family friend doing the service. I don't know the guy he's talking to, I don't think he's part of the family either."

"I could have sworn Heidi said that Harold's entire family would be here."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"This is just his most immediate family, I think. We don't see everyone else very often."

"I can't imagine why."

"Anyways, the big tall one there is Harold's dad, Calvin."

"Fucking Calvin? You're shitting me, there is no fucking chance the Nazi general is named fucking Calvin."

"Mishap at birth, I guess. I don't know. Calvin's wife Kiki is standing there, the one who looks like a model. Their wedding was barely a month ago, I don't even know if she's old enough to drink yet."

"That's somehow the least concerning detail about this family that I've learned so far. I would feel so much more at ease knowing they're all just pedophiles."

"Uh... yeah. Well, that's Harold's brother Jeffrey there with the flannel shirt."

"Jeffrey Jefferson. I'm gonna fucking shoot myself."

"...Harold's eight-year-old son is standing by the car there. His name is Thomas."

"Thomas? Like Thomas Jefferson? Like I'm currently holding a shotgun to my head and that kind of fucking shit is exactly what would make me pull the trigger?"

"Mhm. And sitting down there in the hijab is my sister Rainn."

"Oh, yeah. What the hell is going on there? The bitch has negative levels of skin melanin and is dressed like a fucking Muslim fundamentalist? The only thing I ever learned about Islam is that they hate white people."

"I... don't know about that, nor do I really know anything else about her."

I cut in, "I think you're thinking of the Nation of Islam. That's a whole different thing."

"Nation of Islam... didn't some raging anti-Semite yell that at us in my first week at the grocery sector before throwing a tantrum so loud that security had to drag her out?"

"Yes."

Graham asked Braden, "Do you have any read on your sister's opinions about Jewish people? Has she ever hinted at the need for alternate opinions about the Holocaust in history class?"

He shrugged.

Just as Graham was opening his mouth again, the bishop Randulph clanged a cowbell he apparently brought with him and frailly announced, "We are beginning the funeral proceedings... uh... please take a seat!"

On queue, everybody began taking their seats on the lawn chairs under the canopy. There were 24 chairs brought out and only 12 people to occupy them. Graham and I sat in the empty back row. Randulph took a stand at the podium, pulling out a folded script from a pocket in his robe and struggling to lay it out.

And from this tiny space under a canopy in a damp and muddy gravel clearing next to a damper and muddier graveyard with no casket, ten relatives, and a catholic bishop less than a decade away from death, the funeral service began. And midway through Randulph's generic opening statements, Graham caught wind of the glaring issue as well and interrupted, "Wait, excuse me mister priest bishop sir, but I'm a little confused. Is this it? No casket, no burial, we're just gonna sit here under a wet tent for an hour and a half?"

Randulph replied, "The cemetery is... off-limits to the public until the month of June. Harold's casket has, uh... already been buried in advance."

Graham stood up. "Wait, I’m sorry, are you fucking—"

The mystery mink coat guy who Braden didn't know jumped out of his seat and yelled, "Shut up! Let the bishop speak!"

"Who the fuck even are you? Did you even know Harold?"

"My name is Stuart, and I was his biggest supporter on the campaign trail! Did you even know him?"

"I'm the motherfucker who sent him home after his ass went missing! Unlike you, I fucking contributed something that mattered!"

Randulph coughed and said, "Pardon me, but if I could... uh... resume the proceedings, please."

Stuart plopped back into his chair. So did Graham. And Randulph continued, restarting the lengthy sentence on his script he was in the middle of.

It was painfully obvious that Randulph had done this job so many times before that he approached it with no level of gravitas or shred of emotion. And Stuart was fucking loving it. With every blandly-written and twice-as-blandly-delivered statement vaguely praising Harold, he would aggressively nod in agreement or mutter, "Yeah," or "Yes," or "Absolutely."

Graham lasted roughly three minutes.

"—was truly unique," Randulph finished. Stuart grunted and nodded.

And then Graham whistled at him. "Hey, me again. Why did I get yelled at for asking a relevant question earlier but this cockstick is allowed to make as many annoying noises as he wants?"

Steven looked back and said, "Bro, if you’re just going to complain about the service the whole time, why even stay here?"

"Fucking bold of you to assume you have a right to an opinion when your face looks like it’s trying to be every age at once."

Kiki snickered.

Rainn snapped, "Please…! Please just… stop cursing."

"Leave me alone, whore. I don’t need to take criticism from someone who would hand off their civil rights on a whim and hide in a fucking hijab during a family gathering in case one of their cousins’ eyes wandered to a shred of open skin on their forearm and had a fucking volcanic orgasm. Fucking pussy."

Grace looked at Heidi and said, "Heidi, you invited this guy?"

Heidi growled, "If I knew he was going to behave this way, I would not have invited him."

Jeffrey interrupted, "Hey, let's all just calm down for a minute, yeah?" He reached up to tap on Stuart's shoulder, "Look, I know you’re real enthusiastic and had a lot of feelings about Harold, but maybe it’s best to let things be quiet until the service is over, ‘kay?"

Stuart crossed his arms, and everyone finally went quiet.

Randulph continued, "Well, I was… about done with the opening speech anyhow. If, uh, any of you would like to speak, now you… can." He took a seat in the front row.

Heidi stood up. "Well, I guess I’ll give the first—"

Stuart rocketed up and rushed the podium. He pulled out a piece of paper folded at least five times and laid out the wrinkly mess on it. He cleared his throat and began with an anecdote about his first encounter with Harold five years ago as a high schooler when they brushed shoulders on the sidewalk and talked for 15 minutes about Harold's then-candidacy for the City Council, and then left with his business card. He stayed laser-focused on his campaign activities for the increasingly long duration of his speech, from all of his promotion activities on social media, his poster campaign at his high school, the hundreds more business cards he printed and dished out to strangers at his grocery sector, all for a candidacy that couldn't muster enough support to qualify to get on the 296 ballot.

And then he turned to the other half of his speech paper. Then he talked in great detail about his support for Harold's campaign for the less lofty position of District Council for this year, where he qualified to take on Jun-Ho Park, who has served in the seat for 20 years and would have ran unopposed. His activism included, in his own words, yelling at people on the street with a loudspeaker, illegally dropping a massive banner over the side of a building in urban Takoma, legally changing his middle name to "Vote For Harold Jefferson," and attempting to bribe journalists to release fake hit pieces on Park that he wrote.

Graham wanted to interject badly as he ran down the list, but the curiosity to see what else was on it overpowered the urge.

Stuart folded the paper back up, and after a brutal ten minutes of talking, finally stepped away from the podium. And up came Heidi, taking a little too much of a blasé attitude with her to the stage as she eulogized her dead husband. She brought no prepared statement, and instead spent several minutes recounting random memories of Harold that she thought were absolutely hilarious, spending at least 10% of her time doubling over laughing. She talked about one "joke about goldfish and the Irish Civil War" that she couldn't even try explaining without breaking into violent fits of laughter. About half the audience half-heartedly joined in as a kind gesture. And then she left back to her seat, with Stuart giving a standing ovation as she was applauded.

Jeffrey came up next after Grace nudged at him, and he made no secret of the fact that he had no initial intent of giving any remarks. He droned on in a generic filibuster of the same vagueness of Randulph's speech, verbally meandering around stories of Harold's childhood that he didn't finish and bland positive remarks in his honor. He was a very hard speaker to watch. He was a charismatic black hole with the public speaking ability of a 5th-grader. And for some reason, he just wouldn't stop talking. It was obvious he hated it, and he wasn't good at it, but he just kept zipping about in whatever direction his brain took him with no thought put into what he was saying.

As he went on, I noticed Graham kicking around rocks and stomping his shoes in a small puddle below his chair. It was at least a better pastime than yelling at people.

Remarkably, Jeffrey's rambling stumbled its way into a conclusion. "But, um, all of that whole... thing is really to say that... Harry lived the best life that he knew how to. And that's, like, all that really matters at the end of the day. So... thank you." He walked back to his seat. I could have sworn I saw Stuart wipe tears away before joining the applause.

Randulph asked, "Would... anybody else like to speak?"

Heidi nudged at little Thomas and whispered something to him. He slid off his chair, waddled his way to the car, grabbed something out of the backseat, and waddled back. He presented a small makeshift obelisk-looking thing stuck to a piece of cardboard. "I... I made this out of... clay... for daddy."

Randulph grabbed it and said, "Oh, how... very sweet of you. I'll... be sure one of the night guards has this placed at his grave for you." He set it on the empty chair next to him.

Graham snorted, "Good fucking lord."

Randulph turned around. "Oh, uh... would you, uh, like to speak?"

"I actually would, if the rest of you can be bothered to keep your whining to yourselves. And I don't need the damn podium to be heard." He stood up, and everyone except Stuart turned to see him. "I'm just a little bit unnerved about the concept of all this. Funerals, I mean. Like, what the hell is the point? What are any of you people actually doing here or hoping to accomplish? What does anybody hope to accomplish with this? Why take hours out of your day after waiting three months—and it is a three-month wait if you're trying to hold a funeral outside of Pale Garden—just to collectively feel sad over a dead person? Does anybody leave shit like this glad that they even held it? Because I have a hard time picturing a group of people coming together just to cry for two fucking hours and then leaving thinking, 'This was a good and productive idea, we should do it next time someone dies.' Like, for fuck's sake."

Jeffrey answered unprompted, "Well, man, it's more about honoring the dead guy than just feeling sad about 'em."

"But fucking why? What is the point? You could just forget about them and move on with your lives and it would have the same impact! Hell, if you did, it would spare you a lot of fucking depression down the road as well. Remembrance is a disease that only fucks you over in the long run, and a funeral only feeds into your selfish desire for some cheap form of catharsis. And 'catharsis,' by the way, is not a real thing. Emotions and desires aren't things that compound over time and get bigger, they're just things that happen whenever prompted. You can beat forty children with a baseball bat as a form of catharsis for your seething anger, but that doesn't make you less likely to beat the shit out of your own child. If we wanna celebrate the lives of people who can actually hear us or actually have something for us to learn, go ahead, but this kind of bottom-feeding shit where your just being sad for no fucking reason makes no goddamn sense to me. If it's 'catharsis' you want, you wouldn't wait three fucking months for it in anticipation. If it's about honor, then you wouldn't do some shit like this where the focus is only about you. And if it's about supporting each other, you wouldn't need a goddamn church with a three-month wait time to bring everyone together. And as far as that subject goes... I'll cede my time."

He sat down to an applause break from only Braden.

Randulph awkwardly followed that up with, "Okay... well... uh, would anybody else... like to speak?"

Predictably, nobody did.

He carefully lifted himself off the chair. "Well, then... if we're, uh, all done with the ceremony, then... I suppose we can now discuss the inheritance."

Graham repeated, "Inheritance?"

Randulph slowly treaded to his truck, dug through the mess in the back seat, and pulled out a wrinkly sheet of paper. He walked in front of the canopy. "If you could all... gather around here, please."

Everyone stood and walked a few feet away to gather around him. Graham led around behind him to get a peak at what was on the paper.

Randulph cleared his throat. "So... as most of you are aware, Mr. Harold did not leave a will behind, but he did own a large property on Downing Street where he kept his many belongings. If I'm correct, I believe you testified that he was, uh, grooming his young son Thomas to be its owner when he came of age?"

Jeffrey replied in a marked tonal shift, "Heidi said that, yes."

Graham interrupted, "Wait, you're a fucking executor too? Holy shit."

Randulph continued, "And he also gave no indication of who else he would have... wanted to inherit the property?"

Jeffrey said, "No, he actually did. He called me to help move his furniture in and always asked for my help to fix stuff in the house."

Grace countered, "That's because you're a man and were stronger than the rest of us. It doesn't mean you have a stake to the house."

The until now silent Calvin grunted, "You are the only one in this family with no wife or children. A man who refuses to carry on his family name deserves no inheritance from it."

Jeffrey sniped back, "Just because you don't want me in your will doesn't me Harold didn't!"

Uh oh.

I pulled Graham back away from the spiraling argument. "I think it's a good time to leave now."

"What? Are you fucking crazy? We can't leave just when things are getting interesting."

"Dude, this family is fucking insane."

"Exactly the point. We're not going fucking anywhere when there's an entire house on the line. And if you wanna hop into a public car and scram back to your little hole at Lamont, sure, you could do that and miss out. But I know none of these people are driving me back, so what does that leave me to do? Call a second driver to take me home ten minutes later? It's a weekday at rush hour, these are busy people. Are you so eager to not spent another few minutes here that you'll inconvenience two drivers to round about to the same place at essentially the same time? Does it strike you as efficient for two cars to take two people within minutes of each other to the same place?"

"Fine, I'll stay with you, Jesus Christ."

"Good Finn."

We reentered the gathering. The argument seemed to have broken into two sides. On one, Heidi, Grace, Stuart (for some reason), and Calvin. On the other, Jeffrey and a slightly nervous Steven. Staying neutral were Thomas, Kiki, Braden, and Rainn. I could feel a strategy forming in Graham's head.

"You can barely take care of your own apartment, and you think you can manage a whole house on your own?!"

"I was helping manage the house for years while you were sitting at home!"

"Yeah, don't you already, like, have a house? I don't really know if you need two of them."

"I was taking care of Thomas! How many children have you had to raise?!"

Then Graham shut the whole thing down. "Hey, can we just accept that all of you are retarded and move on?"

Heidi gasped. "Excuse me? How dare you call me that word!"

"Want me to call you it again, skank? I'll drop as many fucking slurs as I want, it's a free country."

Jeffrey joined her. "Yeah, I agree, bro. That's not cool."

"Bitch, you think I won't call you retarded too? I'll call every single one of you shitweasels retarded. I don't give a fuck. I take no hostages."

And then Rainn. "Stop! Just stop it!"

"Sorry, Rainn, but I don't take orders from retards, least of all ones who don't believe in the Holocaust."

Randulph coughed. "If we could, uh... get back to discussing how the inheritance will be apportioned."

Graham replied, "Oh, that's easy, Randulph. I want it."

All of the arguing voices yelled varying statements of disapproval all at once.

"God, you people make my job so fucking easy! I can say literally anything that I want and you fucking idiots will yell at me on queue! Look at this sea of retards in front of me, Finn. You're a retard, you're a retard, you are such a retard, and you too suffer from mental retardation! And you, the man-child named Stuart? I can't even put into words just how flamboyantly retarded you are. You all are mentally impaired, fuck! God, I fucking love being ableist! This is so fucking fun!"

Randulph clanged his cowbell again and everybody quieted down. He asked Graham, "And... what claim do you have to inherit this, uh, property?"

Heidi heckled, "He has no claim! He never even knew Harold!"

"Bitch, where the fuck were you when he went missing for an entire week? His aides were out there scrambling for a trace of his whereabouts while your ass was stuck at home probably getting fingered by your butler! He would have died alone in a fucking grocery sector if I didn't force his ass into a car and send him back to your retarded ass!"

Grace pleaded, "Randulph, don't listen to him! This man is godless and vulgar, he has no right to even be here!"

"Grab my balls out of my pants, stick them in your mouth and gargle them, you cacophonous cunt. Hey, Braden! What do you think?"

Braden flinched. "What? What do I think about what?"

"Should I get the house or should your retard aunt?"

"Um... Aunt Heidi is not a very good housekeeper. Her house has had an antfly infestation for as far back as I can remember."

Grace slapped his shoulder. "Braden!"

Graham cackled. "Goddamn, that's a better strike against her than even I could come up with. Do you have any more embarrassing information on your family you'd like to share with executor Randulph?"

Despite a glaring stink-eye from his mom, he blurted, "Grandpa hooked up with his wife Kiki while grandma was in the hospital after a stroke."

Kiki exclaimed, "Oh my god!"

Calvin made no comment.

Graham didn't even let that statement sink in before saying, "Grace, how do you feel about your dad being an adulterer? Am I the godless one here for saying bad words as opposed to a man who directly violated one of the Ten Commandments?"

Steven talked over Grace before she could respond. "Braden! Bro, we didn't need to know that! How do you even know that at all?"

"What, are you worried he might have found something else, guy who looks like a pancake layered over a topographic map of northern Italy? Braden, I have to ask, is your dad an incest baby?"

Braden chuckled. "His parents are cousins."

Steven immediately yelled, "No, they're not! Only my moms are cousins, not my dad!"

If Graham had a mouthful of water, he would have spat it out. "Holy fuck! Oh, don't worry guys, he's only an incest baby by proxy! And he was so not uncomfortable with that information that he just spouted it impulsively as a fucking defense! You wouldn't get that information out of me with a fucking gun to my head, and he just dropped that shit like it was nothing!"

"No, I—I wasn't trying to—"

"We've heard enough, now shut your hole, Charlie Down. Your mom left your dad to have gay sex with her cousin."

"...Charlie Down?"

"Like, Down syndrome? I'm continuing the ableism thing. I—You know what? Whatthefuckever. Randulph, tell me what you're thinking. We have two candidates for a house here. One's sister is married to the child of a cuz-nuzzler and father had an affair with someone barely over the age of consent while his wife was on her deathbed and has had a fucking antfly infestation in her house for at least a decade, and the other one has none of that baggage. And as an added bonus, I don't even have my own house or apartment. I've been bunking with friends for the past four years. So if I get that house, you have every guarantee I'm treating it like it's my fucking child."

Jeffrey interrupted, "Hold it! I want the house too, and I'm far less deranged than this guy!"

"Fuck off Jeffrey, nobody likes you and you look like a metrosexual lumberjack."

Behind his combed beard, Jeffrey frowned.

Randulph shook out the paper he was holding. "Well, uh... you've certainly made an... impassioned case for yourself. But, uh, I'm a little bit... unsure. You have come off as... quite unhinged throughout the course of this gathering."

"Unhinged? The behavior you have witnessed in the past hour has not been that of a man who is 'unhinged,' it's a man who gives a shit! A man who cares! I yell about things because I'm passionate, I insult incessantly because it proves that I'm smarter, and I swear because I'm not a fucking coward! I'm the only one here with the house's interest at heart! I want it out of obligation, not entitlement! I'm not crazy! I'm not unaware of how I come off to people! I'm just as aware of social standards as the rest of you paltry fucks are, especially when I violate them! And do you know why I violate them? Because they're bullshit! I know full well how I'm sounding to all of you! You're just hearing a guy scream at you that he's not crazy! But I implore you motherfuckers to consider one last thing: which side here is truly unhinged? The one that's passionately yelling profanity and slurs, or—" he pointed at Thomas "—the side that forced an eight-year-old to stand here and listen to it?"

Heidi grabbed Thomas and pulled him behind her.

"Godless, mister bishop/executor? I think not."

Randulph sat on that, looking more tired than anything else he might have been after that monologue. He coughed one more time and said, "Well... since this is a, uh, family matter, I say we put the inheritance up to a vote. Uh... all in favor of Heidi and the Jefferson family receiving Harold's property?"

Heidi, Calvin, Grace, and Stuart (for some reason still here) raised their hands.

"Now... all in favor of, uh, Jeffrey?"

The two most badly roasted by Graham—Rainn, and Steven—shot their hands up. Jeffrey half-raised his hand for a second, then dropped it. Huh?

"And... uh... all in favor of the other guy?"

Up went the hands of Graham, myself, Kiki, Braden... and Jeffrey.

Grace instantly rejected, "No. Jeffrey, you can't do that! It belongs to the family! Randulph, you're not seriously considering this?"

Randulph ran the numbers in his head for a moment. "That is... two for Jeffrey... uh... four for Heidi... five for the other guy... and one nonvoting."

Grace dropped on her knees to Thomas. "Thomas! Don't you want daddy's house? You don't want that insane guy to take it, right?"

Thomas stared back blankly, hugging his mom's leg.

Randulph grabbed a pen out of his robe pocket and started walking towards Graham, but Calvin stepped in front of him. "Excuse me, uh, Calvin." He walked around Calvin and handed the pen and paper to Graham. "Just, uh, sign your full name there and some of your... personal information on the back."

The entire family watched in horror for two minutes as Graham signed his ownership of their house into the official record. He did the signature last for dramatic effect, dotting the "i" in Reid with an obnoxiously large heart, then handing the paper back to Randulph. Randulph traded him the house key from another conspicuous robe pocket.

"It has... been a pleasure." And he walked away, lifted himself into his truck, turned on the booming engine, and drove away.

Graham dangled the key in front of them. "You guys had better get back to your houses. Sometimes democracy is a bitch."

Heidi scoffed and dragged Thomas to her car. Grace followed with Rainn, leaving Steven and Braden alone with their car. Kiki left with Jeffrey and Stuart to get a public driver, ditching Calvin, who drove off alone.

And then it was just me and Graham.

He looked at the address written on a tag linked to the key. "And that, Finnster—" he dropped the key in his pocket "—is what we like to call the art of the deal."

"Just one question: why any of that?"

"Because it's a house. And I fucking deserve it."

"Okay, but... 'cacophonous?' Where did that come from?"

"The heart, Finn. All of that came straight from the connecting place of my arteries. And it won me a house. Admit it, when I told you 'Get your goddamn suit and tie prepared,' you didn't think we would be leaving this place with a new house."

"You could walk into an abortion clinic and leave with a new car. I'll never figure out how you work."

"Hey, it's not my fault. The universe lines up the pins for me, I just throw bowling balls. And man, was my work cut out for me with those fucking clowns."

I nodded, and we walked back down the driveway. A line of cars was stopped behind a red light in the road ahead, and one of them had an open top with no passengers. We jumped into the back seat and Graham told the driver, "1488 Downing Street. Get us there." She plugged it into her GPS and got going once the light turned.

If this is how my funeral will go, I would rather just be thrown in the ocean in a box.