The Funeral of Titus Craig
by James McPherson
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: Some mild ones only.
Description: The funeral of a dictator.
_____________________________________________________________________
People can be pure bastards at times though - times when they should know better I mean. Pure dispassionate bastards. That was my thoughts, watching Sir Timothy Craig’s coffin being lowered into his extravagantly prepared crypt in the slippery wet sod. Sir Timothy, or Titus to his peers, had, as expected, a grand turnout - dignitaries and public, press from all over the world, cameras, armed security, roadblocks, and a helicopter overhead. The gathering was massive - packed tightly in and around the grounds - regally attired, shoving and shuffling, and nasty as a bagful of snakes.
The cemetery overlooked a multi-million pound golf course, surrounded by some of the most exclusive real estate in the West of Scotland, and Ben Lomond commanded attention through the drizzle and mist in the far distance. A burial fit for a king, with manicured lawns and pristine paths - towering mausoleums of marble and granite, and the licentious smell of inherited money and overindulgence. The filthy rich departed booked years in advance to rest their bones in this idyllic setting, with its expensive stone furniture - and as I watched, I wondered just how many of them would have traded every penny of their fortune for one more day, an hour, a minute even, wallowing in the piss and the shit and the stench of life. Quite a few no doubt - but since I was relatively poor, and still breathing, it was perhaps not my place to speculate.
Old Titus himself would’ve connived and butchered for more time I’m sure, but as things stood, he was extremely deceased and without question a major addition to this place, even by the high standards of the filthy rich departed. In a way he himself had been a king - leader of men - and just like royalty, made enemies easily - enemies he probably didn’t know he had in most cases, and it was my guess quite a few of them were here today - witnesses to this morbid extravaganza - making sure his departure was real, and not just some hoax made up by one of his legion of media serfs.
They paid a price for their curiosity, because it was raining - pissing down in fact, and he loved the rain - old Titus I mean - loved the rain so much I half expected a whoop-de-bloody-doo from inside the titanium casket as it descended further into the polished stone abyss. Nothing came from the hollow darkness in the ground of course except grunts and clearing of the throat coughs from the black-clad spectators, hats and veils dripping wet, coats soaking, seeping through into white shirts and blouses. But they stood there nevertheless - watching - leering into the cavern - some relieved, some curious, and others genuinely mourning the loss of an icon. There were also a few - standing stiff and terrified - fearful some hideous miracle might take place and the old man suddenly rose out of the abyss, finger pointing accusingly. But for once old Titus stayed exactly where he was, and some got bold. A barely audible, largely predictable chorus of moan-shusses and groan-shusses, and back-stabbing jibe-shusses nipped and tickled the air. Some of the mob whispered - performed a spiteful little dance macabre with their tongues.
As I said - people can be pure bastards sometimes.
Just in front of me, expensive shoes tainted with the old man’s mud, stood three men - three well dressed jackals. They were his favoured three - the old man’s I mean - his Vieille Garde - all show and faux bonhomie when he lived, and openly demonstrating their true colours now old Titus was sealed in Titanium. They stared at the ground with hats and umbrellas tipped down - hiding their faces - mock reverence, whilst secretly hating the fact they had to stand here over the old bastard in the first place. Truth is they despised each other as much as Titus, and as I watched them play out the sham of solidarity, I knew with all my heart that today was the opening of hostilities - today I feared was going to be the beginning of a long and torturous struggle.
Healthy Oligarchy seemed to be the prevailing rumour when it came to the old man’s administrative affairs - it was far from the truth of course. Behind the thin veneer of inner circle democracy, only one voice counted, and that voice was the distinctive burr of Titus Craig’s. The three in front of me, the so-called elite of the inner circle, were nothing more than nodding heads - yes men in a Titus dominated empire, who manipulated, and conspired - formed and destroyed alliances - and bit and clawed and lied their way into his good graces. They were ruthless, but none had a fraction of the old man’s courage - single-mindedness - brutality even. Petrified of him in life, wary of him, his monolithic status, in death - their only answer was hesitation. But the three were desperate and ambitious, and Titus was gone. It was only a matter of time before they made their move, and it was anyone’s guess who the single, duumvirate, triumvirate voice of the new leadership would be.
Above the stone crypt was a makeshift platform - slightly raised by four steps, with a pulpit-like podium, single microphone, and black awning suspended overhead to protect the structure from the downpour. Standing by the crypt, the three shuffled - postured - prepared themselves for a speech.
One of the three, Geo M, was scheduled to speak first. He had his big hands hidden in the thick pockets of his coat. One big fist suddenly appeared and caught moisture before it fell from his big nose. He plunged the fist, wet and sticky, back into his pocket. The signal came and he moved forward, up the few steps, wiped his big hand down the side of his coat and reached the podium - took hold of the microphone - screech rising above the din.
Today’s a sad day, he said. A day we mourn the death and praise the life of a great man. Titus was truly…
Scratchy oration, plagued by static, sheepishly glowing - predictable. I lost the thread almost at once, but continued to watch his hands - watch and analyse the man. He had boxer’s hands, with a sharp mind and eyes that had seen many things. A lumbering brute whose voice was weak - didn’t have impact like the old man’s. His hands and eyes were his assets, and he’d used them both to wield the axe for Titus - bring it down on the heads of enemies when the old man’s health was failing. He was once the anvil Titus used to forge an aggressive new empire back in the days when loyalty and trust - ideals - were more important than power. Now, as I stared at Geo M’s hands, his mucus, filth, infection - I knew that control - supremacy - was everything.
Geo M’s sycophantic monologue seemed ages long, and when it was over he raised his big sullied hands and nodded his big head in deference to the soft-gloved applause from the gathering. The thought of those hands made me queasy. He stood down from the platform and the second member of the three - Nicky K - waddled up the steps, head down as though counting each one as he ascended. He was small - had to adjust the microphone - slide it down the stem to a spot just below his nose.
A supremely dominant force in all our lives, Nicky K bellowed. Titus will always…
Nicky K’s protruding lips moved up and down - wet, trembling, quivering like rubbery jelly. He looked uncomfortable, always seemed so, no matter how many times I watched him. His stance was awkward - hunched - made him look even smaller, with fingers drumming erratically on the ledge of the podium as though he was desperate to finish and run away. It was all farce of course - deception by a clever orator who was a master at convincing the mob he was one of them, a worker, just like themselves. Nicky K was a little bald pudding of a man with the earthy face of a labourer - and he had been once, a worker I mean - a long time ago, before the old man spotted him. Titus saw through him - recognised something of himself perhaps.
Nicky K was Director of Essential Information. He had a licence to print and say anything, so long as it served the greater cause. In effect he was responsible for the spreading of lies and misinformation. Falsehoods such as Titus standing tall and strong, arms stretched out in perpetual benevolence - reaching out towards his people, like a father welcoming his sons and daughters into his everlasting embrace - or cartoon images of rivals looking like lice, rodents, and every slimy thing that slithered and crawled - bent and sly, and subservient. The people ate it up like hungry guests at a banquet - asked for more - not asked - demanded - more and more. Nicky K evolved, became more inventive. Twenty foot posters of square-jawed men and busty women labourers - digital images of sweat muscle and steel - rough seas and crude oil - rosy-cheeked children in fields - wheat barley and soft red hair blowing in the wind. He gave life to a passionate fabrication - one that simply didn’t exist in the cold hard light of reality. Nicky K was a master of his craft. And now he stood before the black gathering - humble as Uriah - eulogising the myth.
…And our great father Titus will live on, live on through you!
Muffled applause rose again, like wet clothes flapping in a strong wind. Nicky K bowed to his listeners and left. As he went, the last of the three scuttled up the steps to the platform.
Lev B… Lev B had a nickname - The Magician - but this was no term of endearment - was never said to his face. He was thin and devious, and made people disappear. He took off his thick round glasses - wiped them with a rag - thin, quivering fingers fumbling with the stems. A minor thing - familiar practice of short-sighted, middle-aged men - homely even - but coming from this man, it was somehow vile, had a calculated odiousness that sent a chill down the spine and ruffled the hairs on the back of the neck.
My great friend Titus, Lev B squeaked. My great friend - our great friend - will forever be…
His voice was thin, weedy like his build, and given his reputation, all the more menacing. Every word, movement, was a perversity. There’d been talk about him for years - stories of cellars beneath the ground - by the river - women, children even... Lev B was The Magician - he made people disappear. He slipped the glasses back on, piercing pig-eyes blinked - an amorphous beast, not a man. In other circumstances he’d’ve been an outcast - shunned by decent people - but here, under the black awning, with an audience too scared to look him in the eye, Lev B played the favourite uncle, the old man’s advocate, protecting them from evil. Fear produces its own special kind of apathy, but the mob knew, I knew, true evil was here in the flesh, standing before us, and no amount of words, no amount of rain, could wash it away.
The stone slab slid into place over the tomb of Titus Craig, and I witnessed the end of an era - history I suppose - an age of shattered ideals and brutal reality. We all stood in the pouring rain watching history unfold before our eyes, and I felt nothing but disgust - cold, instinctive, and persistent as the deluge from above.
Swearwords: Some mild ones only.
Description: The funeral of a dictator.
_____________________________________________________________________
People can be pure bastards at times though - times when they should know better I mean. Pure dispassionate bastards. That was my thoughts, watching Sir Timothy Craig’s coffin being lowered into his extravagantly prepared crypt in the slippery wet sod. Sir Timothy, or Titus to his peers, had, as expected, a grand turnout - dignitaries and public, press from all over the world, cameras, armed security, roadblocks, and a helicopter overhead. The gathering was massive - packed tightly in and around the grounds - regally attired, shoving and shuffling, and nasty as a bagful of snakes.
The cemetery overlooked a multi-million pound golf course, surrounded by some of the most exclusive real estate in the West of Scotland, and Ben Lomond commanded attention through the drizzle and mist in the far distance. A burial fit for a king, with manicured lawns and pristine paths - towering mausoleums of marble and granite, and the licentious smell of inherited money and overindulgence. The filthy rich departed booked years in advance to rest their bones in this idyllic setting, with its expensive stone furniture - and as I watched, I wondered just how many of them would have traded every penny of their fortune for one more day, an hour, a minute even, wallowing in the piss and the shit and the stench of life. Quite a few no doubt - but since I was relatively poor, and still breathing, it was perhaps not my place to speculate.
Old Titus himself would’ve connived and butchered for more time I’m sure, but as things stood, he was extremely deceased and without question a major addition to this place, even by the high standards of the filthy rich departed. In a way he himself had been a king - leader of men - and just like royalty, made enemies easily - enemies he probably didn’t know he had in most cases, and it was my guess quite a few of them were here today - witnesses to this morbid extravaganza - making sure his departure was real, and not just some hoax made up by one of his legion of media serfs.
They paid a price for their curiosity, because it was raining - pissing down in fact, and he loved the rain - old Titus I mean - loved the rain so much I half expected a whoop-de-bloody-doo from inside the titanium casket as it descended further into the polished stone abyss. Nothing came from the hollow darkness in the ground of course except grunts and clearing of the throat coughs from the black-clad spectators, hats and veils dripping wet, coats soaking, seeping through into white shirts and blouses. But they stood there nevertheless - watching - leering into the cavern - some relieved, some curious, and others genuinely mourning the loss of an icon. There were also a few - standing stiff and terrified - fearful some hideous miracle might take place and the old man suddenly rose out of the abyss, finger pointing accusingly. But for once old Titus stayed exactly where he was, and some got bold. A barely audible, largely predictable chorus of moan-shusses and groan-shusses, and back-stabbing jibe-shusses nipped and tickled the air. Some of the mob whispered - performed a spiteful little dance macabre with their tongues.
As I said - people can be pure bastards sometimes.
Just in front of me, expensive shoes tainted with the old man’s mud, stood three men - three well dressed jackals. They were his favoured three - the old man’s I mean - his Vieille Garde - all show and faux bonhomie when he lived, and openly demonstrating their true colours now old Titus was sealed in Titanium. They stared at the ground with hats and umbrellas tipped down - hiding their faces - mock reverence, whilst secretly hating the fact they had to stand here over the old bastard in the first place. Truth is they despised each other as much as Titus, and as I watched them play out the sham of solidarity, I knew with all my heart that today was the opening of hostilities - today I feared was going to be the beginning of a long and torturous struggle.
Healthy Oligarchy seemed to be the prevailing rumour when it came to the old man’s administrative affairs - it was far from the truth of course. Behind the thin veneer of inner circle democracy, only one voice counted, and that voice was the distinctive burr of Titus Craig’s. The three in front of me, the so-called elite of the inner circle, were nothing more than nodding heads - yes men in a Titus dominated empire, who manipulated, and conspired - formed and destroyed alliances - and bit and clawed and lied their way into his good graces. They were ruthless, but none had a fraction of the old man’s courage - single-mindedness - brutality even. Petrified of him in life, wary of him, his monolithic status, in death - their only answer was hesitation. But the three were desperate and ambitious, and Titus was gone. It was only a matter of time before they made their move, and it was anyone’s guess who the single, duumvirate, triumvirate voice of the new leadership would be.
Above the stone crypt was a makeshift platform - slightly raised by four steps, with a pulpit-like podium, single microphone, and black awning suspended overhead to protect the structure from the downpour. Standing by the crypt, the three shuffled - postured - prepared themselves for a speech.
One of the three, Geo M, was scheduled to speak first. He had his big hands hidden in the thick pockets of his coat. One big fist suddenly appeared and caught moisture before it fell from his big nose. He plunged the fist, wet and sticky, back into his pocket. The signal came and he moved forward, up the few steps, wiped his big hand down the side of his coat and reached the podium - took hold of the microphone - screech rising above the din.
Today’s a sad day, he said. A day we mourn the death and praise the life of a great man. Titus was truly…
Scratchy oration, plagued by static, sheepishly glowing - predictable. I lost the thread almost at once, but continued to watch his hands - watch and analyse the man. He had boxer’s hands, with a sharp mind and eyes that had seen many things. A lumbering brute whose voice was weak - didn’t have impact like the old man’s. His hands and eyes were his assets, and he’d used them both to wield the axe for Titus - bring it down on the heads of enemies when the old man’s health was failing. He was once the anvil Titus used to forge an aggressive new empire back in the days when loyalty and trust - ideals - were more important than power. Now, as I stared at Geo M’s hands, his mucus, filth, infection - I knew that control - supremacy - was everything.
Geo M’s sycophantic monologue seemed ages long, and when it was over he raised his big sullied hands and nodded his big head in deference to the soft-gloved applause from the gathering. The thought of those hands made me queasy. He stood down from the platform and the second member of the three - Nicky K - waddled up the steps, head down as though counting each one as he ascended. He was small - had to adjust the microphone - slide it down the stem to a spot just below his nose.
A supremely dominant force in all our lives, Nicky K bellowed. Titus will always…
Nicky K’s protruding lips moved up and down - wet, trembling, quivering like rubbery jelly. He looked uncomfortable, always seemed so, no matter how many times I watched him. His stance was awkward - hunched - made him look even smaller, with fingers drumming erratically on the ledge of the podium as though he was desperate to finish and run away. It was all farce of course - deception by a clever orator who was a master at convincing the mob he was one of them, a worker, just like themselves. Nicky K was a little bald pudding of a man with the earthy face of a labourer - and he had been once, a worker I mean - a long time ago, before the old man spotted him. Titus saw through him - recognised something of himself perhaps.
Nicky K was Director of Essential Information. He had a licence to print and say anything, so long as it served the greater cause. In effect he was responsible for the spreading of lies and misinformation. Falsehoods such as Titus standing tall and strong, arms stretched out in perpetual benevolence - reaching out towards his people, like a father welcoming his sons and daughters into his everlasting embrace - or cartoon images of rivals looking like lice, rodents, and every slimy thing that slithered and crawled - bent and sly, and subservient. The people ate it up like hungry guests at a banquet - asked for more - not asked - demanded - more and more. Nicky K evolved, became more inventive. Twenty foot posters of square-jawed men and busty women labourers - digital images of sweat muscle and steel - rough seas and crude oil - rosy-cheeked children in fields - wheat barley and soft red hair blowing in the wind. He gave life to a passionate fabrication - one that simply didn’t exist in the cold hard light of reality. Nicky K was a master of his craft. And now he stood before the black gathering - humble as Uriah - eulogising the myth.
…And our great father Titus will live on, live on through you!
Muffled applause rose again, like wet clothes flapping in a strong wind. Nicky K bowed to his listeners and left. As he went, the last of the three scuttled up the steps to the platform.
Lev B… Lev B had a nickname - The Magician - but this was no term of endearment - was never said to his face. He was thin and devious, and made people disappear. He took off his thick round glasses - wiped them with a rag - thin, quivering fingers fumbling with the stems. A minor thing - familiar practice of short-sighted, middle-aged men - homely even - but coming from this man, it was somehow vile, had a calculated odiousness that sent a chill down the spine and ruffled the hairs on the back of the neck.
My great friend Titus, Lev B squeaked. My great friend - our great friend - will forever be…
His voice was thin, weedy like his build, and given his reputation, all the more menacing. Every word, movement, was a perversity. There’d been talk about him for years - stories of cellars beneath the ground - by the river - women, children even... Lev B was The Magician - he made people disappear. He slipped the glasses back on, piercing pig-eyes blinked - an amorphous beast, not a man. In other circumstances he’d’ve been an outcast - shunned by decent people - but here, under the black awning, with an audience too scared to look him in the eye, Lev B played the favourite uncle, the old man’s advocate, protecting them from evil. Fear produces its own special kind of apathy, but the mob knew, I knew, true evil was here in the flesh, standing before us, and no amount of words, no amount of rain, could wash it away.
The stone slab slid into place over the tomb of Titus Craig, and I witnessed the end of an era - history I suppose - an age of shattered ideals and brutal reality. We all stood in the pouring rain watching history unfold before our eyes, and I felt nothing but disgust - cold, instinctive, and persistent as the deluge from above.
About the Author
Glasgow-born James McPherson is a fifty-something single Dad, who gave up his career as a senior care worker a few years back to bring up is daughter. "I've been writing for about ten years," he tells us, "but I really just started taking it seriously three years ago. I've got the bug now. This is all I want to do!"
Among his work so far, James has completed three novels, the most recent of which is Lucifer And Auld Lang Syne.
Among his work so far, James has completed three novels, the most recent of which is Lucifer And Auld Lang Syne.