Spanish Funeral

All joy had fled these pinched, wintry alleys. The sun had slouched away to die somewhere alone, like a poisoned cat. Across the steep valley, Chestnut trees stood stoic and erect, terracotta warriors, undecked, their green bled out. Damp was the only regular that now attended the village church. Plaster was bulbing out, like gout or arthtritic knuckles, and paintings of rustic saints were wrinkling out of their frames, unloved, unnoticed, flecked with fungus, freckle-frowned. The coffin yawed and lurched, coming out into the drizzle. No-one’s buried in the ground in Spain. They slot you in a wall. We mourners, with murrains and galls, and racking coughs and limps, were huddled, waiting. We saw them hoist the pall to offer it to its slot. I was appalled. What I got was a glimpse, to my distress, of something claustrophobically small, so dismal, comfortless – the interior of her “plot”, that niche that’s waiting for us all.