Dearly Departed by Vin Berardi

“Take me Lord, take ME!”

  Matilda fell away from the lush, padded chairs reserved for first-row mourners, and flopped onto the gleaming chestnut casket.  Her girth caused her to immediately begin sliding back off the impressive container, until her grandson Robert helpfully boosted her back up so that she was now straddling it. Her belly acting as a ballast, she kept precipitous balance, yet heaved and waved in the wind, crying and keening.

“Why him, Lord? Why? Why? Why not me?”

          She pounded her fist on the lid, and shook like she was riding a great, vibrating bullet.  No one made a move to console her. The dearly departed Captain’s sister, Linda, looked at her with disgust.

When Linda’s husband, the Captain’s brother-in-law, had been nominated for his Caldecott, Matilda had called him a “damned prostitute,” telling folks he was wasting his time rewarding children for the lack of initiative it took to sit around and read, when they could be out working.

“Oh, have mercy, have mercy!”

            The Reverend finished reading his psalms, and she continued to blubber. The sides of her legs slammed rhythmically against the sides of the coffin, as if she were spurring her husband forth for a final ride into the sunset. The Major, one of the Captain’s oldest friends, saw his son start forward with a conciliatory handkerchief, and yanked him back. Let her choke on those tears, he thought. He hated her and couldn’t help but remember why.

            Matilda had once attended a base Christmas party with the Captain long ago. Also attending the party was a young Private First Class, assigned to check invitation cards.  This particular private had a large, red birthmark that covered a third of his face and spread down his neck.

            Matilda had expressed her shock upon seeing the birthmark so loudly, that everyone nearby was immediately aware of the boy’s disfigurement.

            As the drinks began to flow, Matilda became haughty, and when her husband went off for a brandy with the Colonel, she turned her full attention to the birthmark.

            The private bore her comments as stone-faced and neutrally as possible, until he could no longer stand it. He called her a “cunt” in as low a voice as could still be heard. She responded by attempting to slap him, and he caught her hand in the air, just as the Captain was returning to the room. Unfortunately, the Captain misinterpreted the entire scene and knocked the private out.

            For this offense, the Captain had received five days in the brig, and though he avoided a knockdown in rank, he was never the same. Eventually, he got into a brawl at a convenience store off-base, and wound up being dishonorably discharged.

            Matilda was a cunt—the reason a good soldier was not being honored with the very taps that the Major was humming to himself quietly, as he observed the appalling scene.

“No!  No, no, no, please Lord, NO!”

Her “No’s” were punctuated with hard slaps against the fine wood—now dulling in one place from the grease on her hand.

“No!”

The minister nodded “yes” to the coverall-clad cemetery maintenance men. The gravediggers threw down their smokes, and approached the casket. Usually, this is where the mourners would leave, but because of Matilda, today they wouldn’t budge.

           The workers, matter-of-fact in their resoluteness, went to each end of the coffin, and glimpsing up at the size of Matilda, silently gestured for two mourners to approach and help them with their task. With great effort they moved the sarcophagus over the shimmering, white cement vault.

“Oh Lord!  Lordy Lord! Lord, how can you?”

Very fucking easily, thought Reverend St. Louis. She had essentially marched the Captain to his death. In the last months of his illness, she had given away most of their valuables to the church—bribes, he felt. Bribes to God to give the Captain more time. 

           The Reverend frowned down at the workers’ discarded cigarettes, one of which was still burning. He looked over his shoulder, stooped to pick it up, and then turned his back to drag on it deeply as he remembered Matilda’s antics from last month…

           He had been sifting through the donations from his three collection plates, one Sunday after services, when he saw the Captain’s ring. Anyone who knew the Captain, knew about his ring. It was a zihgir--a jeweled archery ring worn by high-ranking officials of the Ottoman Empire. His grandfather had somehow acquired it in Cypress during the end of World War One. He had passed it down to his son, and his son had passed it down to the Captain, who never took it off. The Captain liked to tell his friends that wearing the ring helped him to “conquer the day.”  But everybody knew he was talking about…

“Matilda. This has to be a mistake. The Captain loves this ring.”

“He should love the Lord even more though, shouldn’t he? This offering will show the Lord of his eternal devotion, and may give Saint Peter pause before turning him away from the Gates of Paradise.”

“I have great hope for the Captain’s soul, Matilda.”

“Just make sure the ring finds its way to God, Reverend, and not to that new seven-bedroom house you’re building in White Plains.”

           He pulled on his cigarette again and tossed it. Over the last few weeks, the Captain had been delirious with pain. On the Captain’s last day, the Reverend had been summoned to his bedside. Reverend St. Louis had asked the Captain whether he had anything to say before he was to be judged. The Captain beckoned to him, and the Reverend lowered himself down so that his old friend could whisper directly into his ear. Matilda had been told a different story, but it had been the Reverend who had actually heard the Captain’s guttural, barely discernible last words.

“Where’s my fucking ring?”

             The Reverend looked at the burial plot sadly. On your finger where it belongs, thought the holy man.

“God, I loved him! And he loved me!  Lord, oh Lord!”

The men lowered the chestnut chamber into the vault. Matilda was laying belly-down, flat on the box. Her giant hanging breasts were falling off on each side, and her sweaty cheek was pressed hard against the coffin. When in place, the men climbed out of the vault and rejoined the mourners. The first shovelful of dirt struck the casket with a grain-crusted echoing thump, and dribbled across her left leg. The second shovelful landed in her hair. 

“Wait, what are you doing?” she bleated.

When the last of the soil was replaced, patted down, and bedecked with flowers, the mourners began to leave. One of the gravediggers, a man named Perkins, turned and considered Matilda for a moment. They had known each other since high school. He shivered. Through the dirt, he still heard snatches of her muffled, barely-audible pleas.

Perkins turned back, grasped his shovel, and reapproached the grave. He sunk the spade once into the fresh earth, then paused to consider Matilda's first demand of this pageant.

“Take me Lord, take ME!”

Slowly, he lifted the shovel and walked away. He wasn’t going to cross her.

Vin Berardi is a NYC-based writer specializing in dark, strange, and comic pieces—often at the same time. An acting teacher for 30 years, he hosts The Trilogy Podcast, has a wife named Amy, and a dog named Louise. His work, first submitted for publication in 2026, has appeared or is forthcoming in San Antonio Review, Emerge, AntipodeanSF, The Apostrophe, Rue Scribe, Punk Eek, Gnome & Bone, and elsewhere.