Aisha moved through the halls with practiced grace, breeze from the open window drifting through her smock. She hadn't quite gotten used to the bandage yet, it lay flat across her nose and itched it where the septum wasn't. She didn't remember much of the operation, but she knew not whether the pain of the tumour or the discomfort of the bandages was worse. It was knotted at the back of her head, under her scarf, and the compounding fabrics pinched her head until her temples buzzed.

Eventually, she arrived at the room, the still heat and electric light humming, stifling. The funeral director and the bereaved man - she did not catch his name, but she knew he was Mme Meursault's son - sat in front of the coffin. The stench of cigarette smoke and burnt coffee found her nostrils seconds later as she rounded the corner.

The coffin was shut.

She looked to the director, then to M. Meursault.

"Do you want to see the body, sir?"
The director glanced at me. "No. He has declined."

Aisha nodded tersely, and sat down by the door. She had known Mme Meursault in her final moments, and never knew she had a son. And here she was; sitting vigil with him.

Aisha folded her hands in her lap, letting the silence settle. It pressed on the skin, thick and oppressive as the heat. M. Meursault sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the coffin as though it were a puzzle he’d been handed without instructions.

He didn’t fidget. He didn’t smoke. He simply existed there, rigid and unreadable, as if any movement might imply a feeling he didn’t possess. Aisha shifted, the bandage tugging at the bridge of her nose. She winced. The director noticed but said nothing. He was the sort of man who treated discomfort as part of the décor. Aisha supposed, for a funeral home it was.

Minutes passed, or perhaps hours; grief had a way of distorting time even for those who weren’t feeling it directly. Finally, Aisha spoke, her voice low so it wouldn’t disturb whatever fragile equilibrium held the room together.

"She wasn’t in pain at the end," she said. It wasn’t entirely true. No one left this world without some measure of struggle, but it was the kind of lie that softened the edges.

M. Meursault blinked, slowly, as though remembering he had eyelids.

"Thank you," he said. His tine wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold either. It just...was.

Aisha nodded. She didn’t know what else to offer. She had tended to his mother’s body, but tending to the living was always the harder task.

Outside, a cicada buzzed against the window screen, frantic and insistent. Inside, nothing moved.

By morning, the heat had settled over Marengo like a gavel.

Aisha stood just outside the home, fingers adjusting the edge of her scarf where it met the bandage. The air smelled cleaner than the vigil room, but only just; dust and warmed stone instead of smoke and coffee. It felt wrong that the world continued so easily. A cart rattled somewhere in the distance. A dog barked, sharp and indifferent.

Behind her, the door opened. The director emerged first, composed as ever, followed by M. Meursault. He paused on the threshold, squinting slightly as the light met his eyes, as though the sun itself were an intrusion.

Aisha watched him, curious despite herself. He had not cried. Not once. She had seen grief in many forms, loud, silent, angry, hollow, but this was something else entirely. It was not absence. It was… neutrality. As though his mother’s death were an event that had occurred nearby, rather than within him.

“The cortege is ready,” the director said.

Meursault nodded.

They began walking. The road stretched ahead in a pale ribbon, already shimmering. Aisha fell into step a short distance behind him. The other moved with the slow, deliberate rhythm that the sun made feel punishing instead of respectful. Within minutes, sweat gathered beneath Aisha's scarf. The bandage itched again, insistently and she resisted the urge to touch it. The doctor had been clear: no pressure, no disturbance. Still, each step made her aware of her own body in sharp, unwelcome detail: the pull of skin, the pulse at her temples, the dryness in her throat.

Ahead, Meursault did not slow.

If anything, he seemed driven forward, not by urgency but by the sun itself, as though standing still would be worse. His shoulders were slightly hunched now, his earlier stillness replaced by something more physical, more immediate. Aisha noticed the way his hand lifted once, briefly, as if to shield his eyes, then dropped again.

“Are you all right, sir?” she called, before she could stop herself.

He turned his head just enough to acknowledge her.

“Yes.” The word was short, nearly lost in the brightness.

She almost smiled at that. It was such a complete answer, so entirely useless.

The road climbed gently, and with it, the heat intensified. The sky was an unbroken white-blue, merciless in its clarity. Aisha felt the edges of her vision sharpen and dull, focussing on small things to steady herself. She counted the rhythm of her steps, the sound of fabric shifting, the faint creak of the coffin being carried.

At one point, the director murmured something about resting, but Meursault shook his head.

“No. Let’s go on.”

There was no impatience nor reverence in his voice. Just a simple preference, as though he were choosing to finish a task before the day grew any hotter. Aisha wondered if that was what this was for him: a task.

The thought unsettled her more than grief would have.

She tried to recall Mme Meursault as she had last seen her, her thin wrists, the shallow rise and fall of her chest, the final, gentle moment when breath left her and did not come back. There had been nothing neutral about it. Her body had resisted, however faintly. There had been effort, even at the end.

She looked again at her son.

If he felt anything, it did not resemble resistance.

The cemetery gates came into view at last, the shade beyond them seeming almost unreal, a promise rather than a place. Aisha felt her shoulders loosen slightly as they approached. Inside, the air was cooler, though not by much. The ground was uneven, marked by stones and names worn soft by time. The procession slowed, reorganizing itself.

Aisha stepped aside as the coffin was lowered.

The priest began to speak. His words floated, gentle and practiced, dissolving almost as soon as they were formed. Aisha did not listen closely. She had heard them all before, in one variation or another. They were not meant to be understood so much as endured.

Instead, she watched Meursault.

He stood with his hands at his sides, eyes fixed somewhere just above the coffin, as though looking too directly would demand something from him he was unable to give. The light filtered through the sparse trees, casting shifting patterns across his face. For a moment, he closed his eyes and Aisha felt a flicker of recognition, of an emotion, any emotion. When he opened them again, it was gone.

The coffin was lowered fully and Aisha’s throat tightened unexpectedly.

She pressed her hands together, feeling the slight tremor in her fingers. It was not her loss. It was not her place. And yet—

“She would have liked the sun,” she said softly, not sure if she meant to speak aloud.

Meursault glanced at her.

“Maybe,” he said. Then, after a moment, he added, “It’s very bright.”

Aisha let out a quiet breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”