Waka was shopping in town the morning the sea came in. There was no eldest son to arrange her funeral rites, no daughter to moisten her lips for The Water of the Last Moment. The chauffeur undertook it. Next, the maid stuffed Waka’s every orifice with cotton. They were the only ones to pass the night with her body. The following morning, after the cremation, they fulfilled the family’s role in Picking the Bones. The funeral director oversaw the ritual. He gave them special, long chopsticks. In prescribed language, he informed them that in order to place Waka’s remains in her jar, they would pick out the intact bones from the tray of her ashes.
They started by with the bones of her feet. No one loved Waka, but no one wanted her to have to be …show more content…
It is one of the four bones of the ankle.” He described the connection of the ankle to the bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, and the articulations of the ankle with the navicular, in front, and the calcaneus, below. The connections enabled a person to transmit his entire weight through the foot. “Or, as is this case, her entire weight. Now, …show more content…
He had a heart-shaped face with a scientist’s floppy hair and quicksilver smile. “Please look here. Some remains of the tibia. Ah ah, ah!” He stopped the maid from reaching. “If you could, first please pick up the talus and place it in the jar.”
They continued, bone by remaining bone. The last bone remnant to be placed was large, the hyoid, or lingual, bone. “The tongue bone,” said the funeral director, eager for either maid or chauffeur to ask, “How can the tongue have a bone?”
Unfortunately for him, they were life-long servants in small-town society. To ask a question out of curiosity! Selfish!
And so Picking the Bones ended. The funeral director passed Waka’s jar to the chauffeur. The jar was a beautiful example of pottery from the Six Old Kilns region. Of course, Waka could have afforded the gold glaze. She chose instead a smooth, clammy pink etched with winter flowers. She bought it when she was twenty-eight years old, imagining it after she died resting as comfortably as she did at home among her fireplaces and stools made of elephants’ feet.
The maid and chauffeur returned with the urn the color of a pig’s ass to Waka’s house on the cliff above the malevolent sea. They waited with it amidst the elephants’ feet until they could care for another person they did not
They started by with the bones of her feet. No one loved Waka, but no one wanted her to have to be …show more content…
It is one of the four bones of the ankle.” He described the connection of the ankle to the bones of the lower leg, the tibia and fibula, and the articulations of the ankle with the navicular, in front, and the calcaneus, below. The connections enabled a person to transmit his entire weight through the foot. “Or, as is this case, her entire weight. Now, …show more content…
He had a heart-shaped face with a scientist’s floppy hair and quicksilver smile. “Please look here. Some remains of the tibia. Ah ah, ah!” He stopped the maid from reaching. “If you could, first please pick up the talus and place it in the jar.”
They continued, bone by remaining bone. The last bone remnant to be placed was large, the hyoid, or lingual, bone. “The tongue bone,” said the funeral director, eager for either maid or chauffeur to ask, “How can the tongue have a bone?”
Unfortunately for him, they were life-long servants in small-town society. To ask a question out of curiosity! Selfish!
And so Picking the Bones ended. The funeral director passed Waka’s jar to the chauffeur. The jar was a beautiful example of pottery from the Six Old Kilns region. Of course, Waka could have afforded the gold glaze. She chose instead a smooth, clammy pink etched with winter flowers. She bought it when she was twenty-eight years old, imagining it after she died resting as comfortably as she did at home among her fireplaces and stools made of elephants’ feet.
The maid and chauffeur returned with the urn the color of a pig’s ass to Waka’s house on the cliff above the malevolent sea. They waited with it amidst the elephants’ feet until they could care for another person they did not