[Winter Contest Entry 2013] Grampa Roberts Funeral

Grammar: Meh... (FG Raptor is Grammar King) I have to nitpick here though:

Both of them puffing white clouds from the freezing cold, entered through the thick wooden doors of a chapel. Inside was a crowd of people were attending the funeral of dear Grampa Roberts

- Puffing white clouds from the freezing cold, the both of them entered... sounds a lot better grammatically.

The walls and floor was covered in wood

Were. The walls and floor WERE...

There are a bunch of mistakes that pulled my attention away more so than similar mistakes in other people's writings (I'm not entirely too sure as to why, but if it was enough to pull me away from the world of the story, then they need to be addressed)

Story Flow: Aside from the issues, it flowed decently well. I might say it was a little too descriptive of what other people said rather than an inner monologue of James himself. It was consistent, not rushed, and kept me entertained.

Topical/Theme: Mostly. It's Winter.

Genre: Slice of Life/Dark

Main Perspective: Even a funeral is just another social event where people try to one-up each other.

Personals: Now I've gone to funerals... and never have I seen everyone provide a eulogy. The point of the eulogy isn't for everyone to speak their minds about the person, but rather someone close to the deceased to sum up his/her life. I found this part to be a bit unbelievable as its usually the closest of the people that present their side of the story. I did, however, like the political/social games that they were trying to play which really did represent a funeral. There's always someone trying to hook up with someone else, children running around disrespectfully, and the work underlings who just kiss ass.

I do want to say again that less verbal dialogue and more inner dialogue would have helped by leaps and bounds. I want to get to know the characters, not find out about them later on.

As for saying it's not a story, a story is whatever a story needs to be. It has a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is the introduction to the two characters and the event. The middle is the droning on of eulogies. The ending is the summation of what a certain person was thinking.

All things aside, I found this to be interesting, generally well-written, and realistic.

I think it was a fine piece of story.

It showed the dark side of a society and how people are always deceiving other people. It was a realistic story, and I feel it would relate to most people. However, I've yet to go to a Western-styled funeral so I'm having more troubles than everyone else at imagining the atmosphere. On the other hand, I seriously can't help picturing the funeral at the end of Spider Man I while reading your piece, lol.

The story was short and intriguing, with details of the church in particular and how people were acting make the piece absorbing. I think at funerals people do tend to feel almost nothing, because their deaths are inevitable anyway. But if somebody dies because of an accident, people would be more sympathetic. It's not like the human have forgotten all their humanity.

There are obviously grammar errors that others have already pointed out, so there's no point in repeating it.

I have a habit of being bothered from small details. Calling an old woman "little" or "small" is one of them. It's not the right word. Also, I don't know why the figure of Jesus was measured to the inches. You could have just said "about 4 feet tall". Furthermore, the grandpa was older then 60, right? Then it's very likely that they have become impotent at the age.

I do have one more riddle: why such an end? I mean, what is the meaning behind breaking up the friendship of James and Walter? I feel like it wasn't necessary to do so.

Overall, it's not bad, but I guess it's not my cup of tea.

Because Anon likes things that are 3'11". The mere number makes his mind run. Get it? Get it?


Don't women get jealous and/or paranoid sometimes? He was a business owner to augment that belief.


Read 4th post, first page:
James was insensible and saw the hipocrisy, Water wanted him to cry in order to see the funeral go as he envisioned. He wanted James to be the "perfect" friend for a picture perfect moment.



Thanks for reading it!

@Coffee:
Thanks to you as well!

Am I missing something here, coz I don't get it...


Good point.


Well, yea, I have read them, but I still have a feeling that something is kinda off in their relationship. Maybe it's because as Walter's supposedly best and only friend, James didn't really seem like one, you didn't give readers that impression in the writing since it's mainly focused on the funeral, but maybe it's just me.

Be sure to check out mine, too

I've read some of your other pieces of writing and this happens to be one of the better ones. It's definitely cold in that it reveals and explores a darker shade of society. The facades, the disinterest, the quarreling, and the lack of respect for the deceased is well-conveyed. I especially enjoyed the bit where the wife accuses the secretary. The gall to do something like that during a funeral is the epitome of lacking respect, and that's the wife!

People have already covered technical errors so I won't touch on it.

The biggest problem for me happens to also be your climax. You might have a messaged buried in your story, but it's still a story nonetheless. At the end of the day, Walter stopped talking to James because James didn't really care about the grandfather. And why should he? As some have pointed out, many people don't cry at funerals let alone strangers. The fact that James came is a testament to his friendship. I see no reason for Walter to have never talked to James again.

Once again, not bad work. Like Dawn of Dark, not really my cup of tea, but I read almost everything like a piece of literature the first time around and I can see and appreciate shadow of society that you are using as subject matter.

Associate, I will say again that I am extremely impressed with your entry. I am fascinated with scenes that I have never seen before in my part of the world. I am fascinated with how the man in the street would react to a funeral. I really wish more people could appreciate those things. Why indulge myself in fantasy when you have a re-imagining of a very real ceremony? I read your entry, then read mine. Ideas were generated, many of them leonard267-ish as expected from leonard267. The result was this parody:

When one's time is up and he departs from the mortal plane, he leaves behind a lump of cells that would foul the air if not properly disposed. One would expect a sane man to dump that person's body into a pit just like what our ancestors would do to their excreta in the days without proper sanitation.

However, if one develops what one calls feelings, emotions or attachment to a person who has recently kicked the bucket so symptomatic between people of blood relations, chances are they will spend a bomb on needlessly extravagant ceremonies, the best crafted of useless coffins and so on. One wonders if they regret the treasure they have spent once they lower that decomposing corpse into a pit or see it incinerated.

This story though centres on one scene of that orchestrated madness called a funeral, namely the part when persons supposedly close to the person to the coffin create long and near inaudible vibrations from the larynx called long and boring speeches in layman language. This story centres around two characters. Let us call them HumbugsAssociate and leonard267 for laughs.

It was not clear why HumbugsAssociate and leonard267 were at the funeral, neither was it clear how they were related to the person in the coffin. What was certain though was that they were onlookers. They were interested in dead people, preferably those who succumbed to the ravages of time and ceremonies ranging from the conventional like conventional funerals to the unconventional like unconventional funerals.

At first, the speeches appeared to be a novelty, especially to leonard267. Perhaps it was a competition to see who could jerk the most tears out of the tear ducts of the audience. Perhaps it was a competition to see who knew the dead man the best. Perhaps it was a competition for competition’s sake. As far as both men can see however, if there were really a competition, all of the speeches would tie for last place in whatever category they are competing for, save the most boring.

So boring and repetitive the speeches were, HumbugsAssociate made a checklist to entertain himself:

1, Must contain references to person in coffin.
2. Must contain more references to self.
3. Must contain as little complimentary references to persons other than the person in the coffin and self.
4. Must contain as many derogatory references to persons other than the person in the coffin and self.
5. Must contain euphemisms so that 1 to 4 won’t be made obvious
6. Must be delivered in the most monotone and boring voice so that the audience wouldn’t care about 1-5

Leonard267 on the other hand began a slow descent into madness with each passing second. He flipped through the dictionary which was meant to be passed off as Holy Scripture. While the religious generally agree that the Scriptures contain prophecies and premonitions about the eschatological future where the entire world will be plunged into disasters ranging from global warming to more global warming, leonard267 was having his own premonitions.

It could be the (black) magic of the ceremony. It could be the cold weather. It could be that leonard267 was high on mind altering substances. It could even be the spirit of the man in the coffin. Whatever the reason was, leonard267 was hallucinating. As he flipped furiously through the dictionary to find the entry for the word †˜cold’, he thought that he is in a writing competition of sorts. To make it even more queer, he thought that the competition was judged by a gas (a noble one, one must add), a late former US President and a sentient city of Biblical myth that could talk and had less than soundproof walls. To make it even more confusing for the reader, he also decided rather suddenly that the dictionary entry he set his eyes on was indicative of the future.

Barring the fact that his thoughts turned to him possibly becoming a female Prime Minster despite the fact that he is male, (his crazed thoughts are laid out in detail in this link: https://www.fakku.net/forums/writing-and-fanfiction/winter-contest-entry-2013-an-analysis) he suddenly hollered,

“LOOK AT THE COFFIN!”

True enough, the coffin appeared to be shaking. Whilst everyone attending that funeral was taken aback, HumbugsAssociate strode forward and opened the coffin after exerting quite a lot of effort to do so. It turned out that in the coffin were an ancient couple who were undressed and what were they doing in there was described by leonard267 as thus:

Despite their bodies having lost their freshness and vividness so to speak, they decided to engage in that intimate moment which ought to be shared between happy, married couples. In a coffin no less!

To the onlooker, their romp would be far off the mark so to speak. It would be marked by poor or unlucky performance so to speak, due to the loss of their rigour of youth over the years. Had they been doing it with someone else, he or she or not-quite-he-or-she or it would lament that they were not not prepared or suitably warmed up so to speak.

They were nonetheless happy, even though they risk sending themselves to the gates of Hades by doing it at such an advanced age Even though they risk sending themselves to the gates of Hades by doing it in a funeral in the honour of one of them.

One member of the audience, supposedly the wife of the dead man in the coffin shrieked,

"Stop ****ing him in the coffin you wench! We all know you slept with him now!"

The woman who was doing it with him was some mistress. Who knew that man in the coffin had tastes for old women?

It turns out that someone did a lousy autopsy and ought to be in the coffin instead. So traumatised by the chain of events and even more disgusted with leonard267, who was foaming in the mouth by then, that HumbugsAssociate decided not to speak with anyone in that audience again.

Moral of the story:

DO A PROPER AUTOPSY, DAMMIT! THAT WAS BLOODY AWFUL; SEEING THEM DO THAT IS BLOODY AWFUL! MY EYES!