The Funeral

Words: Cup Noodles and Chipped Teacup

Content Warning: Mention of gecko/lizard

***

I never thought I would throw a funeral for a lizard. It never even figured at the bottom of my bucket list, which was filled with other, equally unbelievable things (37. Pet a polar bear). I looked over at my mother, sitting on the couch, trying to mask her disgust with a smile. She wasn’t fooling anyone but I appreciated the effort. She shook her head at me, and I almost giggled.

My six-year-old niece, Zuha, was kneeling on the floor next to me, wearing all black, complete with a net veil she had seen in a movie. She was sniffling a little, looking down at the lizard. It was wrapped in toilet paper, lying limp like all corpses do. We had discovered the body earlier that day, in our kitchen. After residing in one of the cabinets for over a year, it had succumbed to some sort of illness. At least that is what we tried telling my niece, who wouldn’t stop crying and blaming us for murdering it.

“You hated it. You screamed and ran away from it. Bad people,” she whimpered. Later, she demanded that we send it off with honour, as a member of our household. Her mother, my sister, had immediately refused, leading to some tantrum throwing and more crying. Eventually, we decided to spend the rest of our weekend planning and throwing the funeral. It would make for an interesting story at work.

“Should we pray?” I asked Zuha. She nodded and joined her hands together. I gestured to everyone else to do the same and after some mandatory eye-rolling, they complied. We wished for its safe journey to the afterlife and for the forgiveness of all its sins, of which there were many (it had knocked off two of our teacups, chipping them at the rim).

“Can we bury it now?” Zuha declared. I nodded, “Where do you want to do it?”

“Our garden.” There was no question or hesitation in her voice but I feared her parents would disagree. “Let me ask and then we can start. You stay with it.”

I walked over to them, tiptoeing to not disturb the solemn mood of the room. “Do you think we can bury the lizard in the back of the garden? Away, of course, from the plants.” Her father raised his eyebrows at me, almost in disbelief, but her mother agreed immediately, to my relief, “Fine. But I am not removing the paper from it. You do it.”

“I think we can bury it with the toilet paper. The label said it is biodegradable.” She sighed in response and I went back to Zuha.

It took delicate maneuvering to have both of us hold one end each of the lizard and lower it into the ground. Zuha put the soil back over it and patted the grave lightly with her palm. Standing back up, she said, “It is time for the funeral meal.” We all looked at each other in bewilderment. It was already 8 PM, none of us had had dinner and this still was not over.

“What do you have in mind, Zuha?” my mother asked. We expected her to make a meal with her play kitchen set. “We should eat something from the lizard cupboard.”

***

The dinner table was quiet as we all waited for the cup noodles to cook and tea to brew. None of us had taken anything out of the lizard cupboard in the past few months because of its inhabitant so it was fully stocked with some snacks and tons of cup noodle packs. After inspecting each pack for cracks, splits, or leaks, we chose five for our funeral meal.

Zuha had taken off her veil and was squirming in her chair, impatient. Deciding to engage her until the noodle timer went off, I asked, “Are we allowed to talk as we eat, Zuha? Or is this a silent meal?”

She looked at me, her brown eyes resting intently on my face. “We can talk. Lizard would have wanted that.” I struggled against the urge to ask her if she knew how troublesome and annoying that stupid gecko had been and settled on simply blinking back at her.

Tring. Everyone opened their containers at the same time, filling the area with steam and fogging up my glasses. Zuha laughed, pointing at them, and I realized that it was the first time today that she had shown any happy emotion, feeling guilty about what I was thinking before.

Right then, her mother brought out our tea, giving Zuha and me the chipped teacups that Zuha had insisted we use. I suppose it was somewhat special for me to receive it too? This really isn’t the time to feel good about yourself. Despite Zuha’s wishes, we ate in silence, inhaling the hot, spicy noodles that seemed like the best meal in the world. Attending a funeral can really exhaust you.

As we were clearing up the table, a scream drew us all to the kitchen. Zuha’s mother stood in front of the tall cabinet next to the lizard cupboard, with all the sugar, flour, and spices, her eyes wide open and her hands shaking.

“What? What happened? Did you hurt yourself?” I asked but she didn’t respond. Zuha insisted that I lift her so that she could peer into the cabinet and join in on the drama.

Before any of us could investigate the scream any further, Zuha squealed, "Lizard sent us three of its friends to make us happy.”