The Cremation House (Part 1)
A group of people talk about death, but only one really understands it.
So, how best do you choose to die?
That question came up at every meeting of a weekly discussion group–about dying in style–that I joined. We called the club the Cremation House, although not everyone chose to die by fire. Most of them, however, choose an ordinary death. Take sleeping pills, take forty cough drops, or just hang themselves. Unstylish ways to die. Not eternal.
In this club, we talked about various things. From how to tie knots, how to die while smiling, how to have fun when you’re sick and already know the verdict according to your doctor, to unusual ways to die. All for the sake of dying in style, of course.
There’s really nothing strange about us. We just sometimes question things we don’t know. We wonder, if we die first, will the angels of death lose their jobs? What if people die in groups? What do angels do? Is it just guarding the counters to the other life? These are also the questions we ask at the Cremation House.
I actually never thought I would feel at home in a discussion group like this. Suppose other people join discussion groups to change their lives for the better, reduce bad habits, cut down on cigarettes or alcohol, and find motivation instead of running away from reality. In that case, we are here to challenge what people are afraid of. Some of us even claim that we often see the shadow of the angel of death but never die. So that person always says, “I joined this group so I could sneer at my own death.”
And yes, to this day, he is not dead yet. He only said that a date mark had been engraved on his forehead. Only he can see it, while the other members of the Cremation House club cannot. He said the date marker indicated the number of days he had left. We always laughed and exclaimed, “Congratulations, you have two hundred and thirty days left to live!”
If he suddenly says, “The count has increased by one! This is a malfunction.”
Then we would all again exclaim, “Wow! The death calculator is out of battery!”
That’s how we make fun of death. No one felt scared or sad. Everyone accepted death with joy.
Every week, there are always new members or members who have passed away. Some of us take turns telling stories about ways of dying, depending on the weekly theme. For example, last week, we sat in a circle as usual and were asked to look at the friend on our right or left. Afterward, we were asked to close our eyes and imagine who the first person would be to jump off a cliff together.
A story must have popped into each person’s head, with various scenarios in mind. I was the same way. On my right side was Faizi, and on my left was Sansan. When I was asked to open my eyes and tell them about the scenario, I laughed with them both. Apparently, when we were telling the story, the flashes of images that appeared in our minds when we closed our eyes were almost similar.
“Yes, of course, I want to jump with my asshole friends on the right and left,” I said.
Faizi and Sansan nodded quickly. “My imagination says the same thing. We’ll play ballads at the edge of the ravine, light a bonfire and eat marshmallows. Then, people will call out our names, like during Kurt Cobain’s acoustic concert. It’s all soothing. Then, the three of us would jump together, shouting, ‘I love you all, People!’. And we’d come of age as the gods of ballad music.”
“What a fool you are. Kurt Cobain wasn’t a ballad musician,” Faizi interrupted while patting the back of Sansan’s head.
“The point is, dying as a gloomy musician will be eternal, even if we’re not gods. No?” Sansan replied later.
“Well, for this one, I agree. Especially if we die even or almost at the age of twenty-seven,” I interjected between their debates.
The three of us could only laugh at the thought, while the discussion group leader immediately turned the question to another member.
(to be continued)
This story was originally published in the Indonesian language as “Rumah Kremasi” in the short story anthology entitled “Rumah Kremasi” (The Cremation House), published by Maneno Books in 2018. Ayu Welirang translated this story into English version.
Ayu Welirang is the author of several books written in the Indonesian language. She’s also writing crime fiction and translating some classic detective stories into the Indonesian language in her spare time. Want to treat her to coffee? Visit ko-fi.com/ayuwelirang
Special thanks to Jay C Wells for your constructive feedback! It means a lot! I hope this short story find its way to the readers.
