Pop-Up Sadness

Even though it is ever present, we hide death away in our empty cemeteries. We must look forward not back, strive for a future, create a legacy, make history.

*

Carol rests a bunch of off-white roses on the coffee shop’s outside table to strip off the labels from the cellophane wrapping. The instructions on how to keep the roses healthy and price tag with barcode are dropped to the ground, adding to the litter in the street. I don’t comment. Around the corner, a burnt-out car sits in front of sheltered housing.

Carol had told me how strongly she felt she needed to do something. I wanted to say: I don’t want to intrude. She said, ‘I can’t go on my own.’ I put a hand to her shoulder, ‘Of course, I’ll accompany you.’

Two nights previously the car crashed here killing all three of the young people inside. Metal fencing had been erected around the scene. People have been drawn to this spot bringing flowers to turn it into a makeshift shrine.

The display now contains multiple bunches and raw messages. Carol can’t ignore it; she wants to be connected to the death too. As we approach, four people are already there, milling about looking at the flowers and reading the messages. She sticks her roses, with other bouquets and a few single blossoms, into the fence.

I take a cursory look at painful words written about a ‘brother lost’, children who ‘no longer have a father’ and ‘friendship broken’; confusion expressed in ‘angels’ and ‘meeting up with Raoul, Stef and Eric again.’

Carol can’t stop herself saying out aloud: ‘It could happen to anyone.’

A fellow mourner, a man, replies: ‘It is so out of the ordinary ... For Raoul, death wasn’t final so the struggle didn`t matter. He will be reincarnated.’

‘You knew him?’

‘I loved him … For me, this has left me sad as Raoul never really tried to fulfil his dreams.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Carol.

‘Yes, that’s why I’m angry ... He died, as he lived, in narcissistic glory. A candle to a world full of moths, people like me.’

At the foot of the shrine, Carol points to open beer cans; cigarette stubs with ash; and, unlit and half used candles. The objects look positioned in an organised way, as if a tribute. The open beer cans and smoked cigarettes aren’t out of place; presumably left as a tribute; representing something about the three dead who had been driving home from a nightclub.

*

Three months later, Carol and I return to the site. The metal fencing still surrounds the damaged building but the long dead flowers and other detritus has been removed.

The mourning has gone elsewhere.

*

Why have I written this piece? Like Carol, like the quarter of a million people who queued to see the queen lying in state, I couldn’t ignore a pop-up shrine. Like them, I didn’t know the dead person. Like Carol, for some reason, I too want to acknowledge death.

Pop-Up Sadness is published in ‘The Penitent’s Rose: A collection of short stories on guilt ‘ (Spring 2024). The short story was first published in the Morley Muse (Winter 2021) but subsequently revised. It is also available in audio as part of a Morley Radio session , featuring 7mins 34sec into the recording.