Leonard is a 25 year old artist living in a Toronto apartment. He goes by ‘Leo’, and he spends most of his time painting. He is blonde (think Kurt Cobain), and is of Irish/French decent. He works for the city, doing odd jobs like cleaning subway stations and shovelling snow in the winter. He grew up in a small rural town, but moved to Toronto when he was 21 in search of work. He is smart, observant, but only attended high school until the 10th grade. His father still lives back home, while his mother died died in a car accident when Leo was 9.
Leo doesn’t have many friends, aside from the people he works with. He is friendly and understanding, but quickly becomes uninterested in things that don’t directly concern him. He believes himself to be autistic and thinks that he has a personality disorder, but has never bothered o get himself diagnosed.
When Leo isn’t painting he is usually searching for inspiration, usually in places that would be considered depressing by most, such as funeral homes, emergency rooms, cemeteries, etc. He believes the suffering of others is the only thing that provides any meaningful inspiration for his art. He doesn’t dream of fame, but secretly wants to be rich so that he can lie around all day and not worry about anything.
The rosewood coffin lay half open at the far side of the room, a large painting tacked on the wall behind it and a collection of unorganized flowers to the right. A small crowd of about 25 people sat in attendance in soft chairs, some crying softly into handkerchiefs, while others found interest in watching the clock that hung above the window on the left side of the room. It was snowing outside, a blizzard apparently, although no-such thing had been predicted by the trusty weather woman. If it had, then you can bet that this ‘gathering of remembrance’ would not be taking place. A few men who were seated close to the window groaned as they watched old women and mothers with strollers struggle through the arctic-like blizzard that was clearly unforgiving. Larry, the nephew of the deceased remembered that the coffin still had to be carried out into the funeral car which had been conveniently parked across the street. Larry looked to his right, in search of the clever driver. He was sitting close to the isle three rows down, and he was eating some sort of nuts. Larry made a small noice of disgust, which was aimed at this mystery man, however his wife, who was seated just next to Larry, apparently mistook the noice for some sort of a whimper. She looked up at her husband, her eyes red and her little nose running, as she reached for Larry’s forearm which she held tightly in her hands.
The old man who had been speaking slowly at the front finished his speech by giving the audience a very unnecessary bow, which he followed by blowing his nose into a handkerchief. A woman near the front of the audience stood and walked to the front, a cane in her right hand. She stopped to shake the hand of the previous speaker and share some inaudible words of comfort. Leo, the hearse driver who was seated near the front was barely able to make out the elderly words.
“Thanks Sue,” whispered the first man. “It would’ve meant a lot to Lloyd.”
Sue nodded and patted the man on the shoulder.
The room was silent as Sue took a stand behind the wooden podium. She fumbled for a moment, removing a neatly folded piece of paper from her breast pocket and applying a pair of oval reading glasses to her weathered nose. She then appeared to begin reading her speech in her head, ensuring that she had brought the right document. The audience was in a wrapt attention, even more so then when they had presented the dead body an hour earlier.
Sue finally began by placing the paper back into her breast pocket and removing her glasses.
“Thank you, everyone, for coming. I realize it’s not the most ideal weather to be having a funeral, god knows Lloyd hated the snow.” She paused to wipe her nose in a small napkin which she had clutched in her right hand. She continued to speak, her voice becoming slightly shaky.
“Umm, Lloyd had a great life. He really did. He was so kind, so gentle. He was really great to us, the whole family.” Sue paused, her gaze up towards the ceiling as her eyes began to slowly water. “I first met Lloyd in about, oh, 1959. He was thirty two at the time, and, um, I think he was in a rough place. His first wife, Jane, had just passed away, cancer of the lungs I believe, and he didn’t have much money, so he was staying with his mother. Um, he had two children, a little boy and a girl, I think the boy’s name was Bobby, and the girl’s was Alice. They were very sweet children, but um, one winter Bobby caught a bad cold, and um, well he passed on in the spring.”
The audience held their gaze as Sue paused to remove some pieces of paper from her pocket. Leo was on the edge of his seat, his eyes wide and his mouth held slightly open. he scribbled something down into a little notebook in his lap.
“I’d like to present a short story to the audience,” he said, extending his right arm out in front of him and gesturing towards the crowd. “I first met Lloyd in Korea. He was a foot soldier, I was a pilot, um, so we were busy, ya know?” John wiped his nose into his black suit. “Anyways, one afternoon I was surveying over some section of jungle, nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary, guys like me did it every day, all right? Anyways! - ” A fat woman near the front jumped in her seat, nearly losing her glasses from her face. “I get this call on my little radio, uh, it was distorted, barely audible, but I’ve got some good ears. You have to when you’re doing what I did.” He paused, surveying the room. “It was this voice of a man, and he was saying something along the lines of, uh, help! So naturally I responded, ya know, that was my job, and I said, uh, hmm, oh what was it.” John stood for a moment, gazing out the window as he twiddled his fingers on the end of the podium. Something in his head must’ve clicked, because his eyes quickly refocused themselves and he re-straightened his back. “Ah yes!” He exclaimed. “I said, ‘yes hello this is chopper tango-foxtrot-alpha, state your emergency,’ and the man came back saying that there had been some sort of a fire, or a fire-fight, uh, I can’t remember, but he needed help. I told him I wasn’t too far off and that I would do what I could.” John took a large swig from a cup of glass on the table behind him.