I was lucky to get coverage long enough to attend the funeral before running back for the evening shift. The drive was an hour out of my way, but I wanted to pay my respects to Ashley since we had been friends since kindergarten.

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When I arrived at the church, I saw the other mourners were wearing face-coverings. They ranged from intimidating Victorian veils and white hospital face masks to porcelain doll’s heads stretched over their faces by elastic. I took an old facemask out of my jacket pocket (a quarantine staple—it really had been that long since I last wore this suit) and put it on so that I did not feel exposed. I sat toward the middle-back; alongside a few others I almost recognized under the covers. As far as I knew, there was no one else from our school days.

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Even with my mask on, the other mourners refused to greet me. I stopped trying to make conversation.

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I did not expect that it would be an open-casket service, but it was. There was a moment for each of us to pay our respects. Morbid fascination brought me to look. She was at rest, hair done in elegant braids pulled back tight off the cool, washed-out face. She was dressed in a simple white and navy-blue dress. Her clothes made Ashley look older than she had been in life.

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I followed as they went to the graveside, cautious of the time. The casket was rested before it would be lowered into the ground. An elderly relative—perhaps her grandmother—asked in her muffled voice if I would take one last picture of Ashley with the family. I could not refuse them.

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The family gathered around Ashley’s casket—opened for the last time. Her body had shifted slightly in the journey over and her father moved her hands back into place. I took out my phone and arranged the family so that they all fit in the frame. I took two pictures with everyone’s faces still covered.

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Then someone asked if I could get a picture of everybody smiling.

Face coverings fell. Masks were removed. Some went back into purses; some fluttered to the grass below; other veils went high up on heads and made lacy hairdos.

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Each and every mourner’s skull stared back at me. Their faces were completely stripped of skin. They looked toward me with deteriorating muscle and powdered, eyeless sockets. Some smiles were jawless half-moons; others missed teeth, uncovered by lips. Only my Ashley in her casket looked then as she had in life.

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She smiled at me in the last picture I took. The fork in her tongue slipped past her parted lips.

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She was never lovelier as they closed the casket lid.

© Copyright 2025 James Carraghan

James Carraghan is a writer, collage artist, and bookmobile operator in Pennsylvania. You can find more of his work at: https://librarynevercloses.wordpress.com