Broken Fevers by Tenea D. Johnson

Author:Tenea D. Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rosarium Publishing
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Deep Night

Between death and birth lies a deep night. In it, the soul stretches out, comes apart at the seams, and disperses, to eventually recreate itself anew. Evangeline always imagined it to look like multicolored light floating like gossamer or lightning in space. She thought now of her Mama Luella stretched out against the darkness, melding with other lights while Evangeline sat stiff-backed and tired in a clearing to pay her respects. She smiled through the distance between them now. She did not fear that Mama Luella was lost, only traveling to come back in another face, a deeper dream, a more refined version of her truth. Evangeline looked now and again at her father sitting next to her. Only the tendons in his jaw acknowledged the funeral happening around him; they worked diligently, chewing on the pain of death. His round brown face was still but for their movement. The rest of him seemed far away. She hoped with her mother.

Activity coursed around them. Graceful old mamas crowned in feathered Sunday hats led each other to their seats, spoke and wept quietly in pockets of color—blue, purple, rose. All of Mama Luella’s favorite colors expressed in skirts, homemade blouses, dyed slippers—as per her grandmother’s instructions. Evangeline didn’t wonder when they’d received these instructions. Only her father and the Reverend donned the traditional black. She wore the dress she’d found waiting for her in her grandmother’s front bedroom, a lush blue wrap with white doves stitched into the hem. Though she’d never worn a wrap in her life, her hands worked outside her conscious mind and cinched it perfectly in a few moments, a deep hum vibrating through her lips as the last fold was tucked in place.

Evangeline smiled now at the women she knew had bathed her grandmother at this morning’s sunrise. Carefully dipping swatches of cloth ripped from their own lives into spring water, they had wiped off the funeral parlor’s makeup and concealer, coaxing Luella out of this impression of her. Now they turned the corners of their mouths up, smiling back at Evangeline. They slowly nodded to her, eyes locked on her own. She returned the gesture. It seemed a signal.

The Reverend, who’d been quietly praying in a cluster of oaks, advanced from the trees and walked to the front of the outdoor congregation. He smoothed his thick white mustache and began to collect the spirit.

“Brothers and sisters, we gather today to celebrate the soul of Luella Willet …”

“Mmmm hmmm,” the mourners sang back to the Reverend.

“… Sister Luella touched all of our lives, but more than that, she touched the heart of God!”

“Yes, she did! Yes, she did!” the older ladies chimed in, fanning the words out of their mouths. Evangeline watched them scoot farther back in their chairs, poised for the next punctuation.

“… and for this we know she sits high in the kingdom of the Lord!”

“On high! Yes, Lord on high!” came the crescendo from the audience.

Having released this energy built up since

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