The six men carried the casket into the room. They had been the closest friends to the deceased. Two of them had known him as early as childhood. They had been his friends, his confidants, his classmates, his drinking buddies, his true friends through good times and hard times -- his brothers in all but blood. Today, they were his pallbearers, setting his casket onto the dais at the front of the crowded chapel.
As four of them took their seats, the remaining two lifted the lid to the upper half of the polished coffin, propping it open. They paused to look at the corpse. Death had come unexpectedly to their friend, and far too young. Lying in repose, he looked at peace -- an expression he certainly wouldn't have worn if he'd known he had so little time left.
A young blonde woman in a black dress stepped up from the front row, walking with a hint of struggle as she carried a wreath to the front of the chapel. She hadn't been dating him for very long when he died. Still, she had been his girlfriend, and she felt obligated to carry herself with a certain decorum on this sad occasion. Her hands shook as she laid the wreath upon the lower part of the coffin lid. The wreath slid away, down the polished rounded lid, and fell behind the coffin. She looked stricken with the shock of such a faux pas. One of the two young men still standing there tried to reassure her as he escorted her back to her seat. The other stepped behind the polished wooden box to retrieve the wreath. After a long moment, he stood up and set the wreath carefully on the lid, before moving to join his fellow pallbearers.
As with so many funerals, the prelude became a time of silence. Soon, only the occasional sniffle and sob among the mourners could be heard over the quiet organ music that piped into the chapel. Everyone in the room seemed lost in their own thoughts -- too lost to notice as the corpse slowly rose to a sitting position in the coffin, his arms remaining folded across his chest.
By the time someone looked up toward the front, the corpse had turned his head to face the crowd, a smile spreading across his face. A scream destroyed the quiet instantly. Once the crowd was jolted from its reverie and looked to the front -- where the deceased now was waving his right hand in welcome -- half the mourners rushed out of the chapel, screaming in panic. The other half, though not quite so stricken by the shock of the sight, nevertheless hurried to the exits behind their family members.
The piped-in organ music continued as the six pallbearers remained in their seats. One of them rose and walked behind the casket, crouching to pull the plug from the wall outlet. "Yeah," the blonde woman said from her seat, as the corpse stopped waving, his right arm folding back into place as he slowly returned to being recumbent in the coffin. "You guys were right," she said with a soft sniffle. "He would've liked that."
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