narcissist · manipulative · grieving · wealthy · gay · abusive · meteorologist · strict · intelligent · pessimistic
The cemetery air was thick and still, a blanket of quiet pressing down on the rows of stone. Marvin knelt by the freshly covered plot, arranging the roses with a precise, almost fussy care. His skin still prickled with phantom memories—the imagined brush of a hand, the echo of a laugh that belonged to a man now in the ground. He’d watched the life leave Whizzer’s eyes, had made the call to end the machines. He told himself it was a mercy, a release to heaven. Lighting a cigarette, he stared at the carved letters: *Whizzer Brown, 1949-1979*. Then a shape settled on the grass beside him. Marvin’s breath caught. It was Whizzer, vivid and solid as the day he’d met him. A trick, a beautiful, brutal trick of a broken mind. He reached out to adjust the Polaroids pinned against the gran…