In Search of Love.
The scene was a like a horror movie; three cars collided in deadly fashion. There was twisted metal, burning fuel and debris scattered across the road. Poor Zara and Jason were driving back home from a night out watching Stewart Lee at the De La Warr Theatre in Bexhill, when it happened.
Zara was driving and they were chatting away talking about the show when a car hit them head on coming the other way. It was going so fast it even smashed into the car behind them. The impact was on the driver’s side and Zara was killed instantly. The car went into a spin and ended up in a ditch. Jason was knocked unconscious when his head hit the passenger side window and caused a deep wound which bled heavily.
The offending driver had been high on drugs and had drifted into the oncoming lane. The driver was killed and thrown through the windscreen as he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. The car behind was in a state but the driver lived with only cuts and bruises to deal with.
The emergency services were on the scene fast. The medics did what they could at the scene and the police cordoned the road off. The fire fighters had to attend and cut people free from their congealed contraptions. They operated with the speed of lightning, attempting to save lives with their heavy-duty hydraulic equipment.
Zara and Jason were rushed to Brighton hospital in separate ambulances. Zara was declared dead shortly after they arrived, Jason was still unconscious and to help his recovery the doctors put him into an induced coma. They did this to reduce the brain's energy demands, allowing it to heal more efficiently and reduce the risk of further damage. Jason lay in a hospital, unconscious and unaware his beloved wife, Zara had died.
A few weeks later the doctors awoke Jason and when they thought he was strong enough, they broke the news about his wife. Jason was devastated; he cried uncontrollably for what seemed like days. Fortunately, he recovered well from his injuries and was allowed to go home after another week. His parents and friends rallied around him to help as much as they could.
Jason felt differently about life. He couldn’t understand why this tragic event had happened to him. What had he done to deserve this, it wasn’t fair. They lived a good life, they were kind to people, they were both well known in their community and now he was a widower. He’d met Zara when she was twenty, they were both students of mathematics and had met at their part time job in the Red Lion Public House at Gatwick. Whilst pulling pints and serving meals they fell in love.
Jason had always been shy and had never had a girlfriend before; it took Zara to make the first move. Whilst talking during a shift one day, they were discussing movies, and the lasted Batman was on at the cinema. It was Zara who suggested that they go together and watch it. Jason remembered being so nervous about the date, he didn’t want to screw up his only opportunity.
They got married a year later and were planning to have children. When Jason had ingested the news of her death, he thought to himself, “why do I bother? We tried so hard, it’s pointless”. He would spend hours looking through the photo albums of their wonderful holidays and their wedding. It was so painful.
Friends and family helped him through the funeral which was a extremely difficult day. Jason bought a new black suit, with shiny black shoes and a black tie. It cost £450, he was happy to pay it for his wife but in the back of his mind he thought he’d probably never wear it again or at least he hoped.
The funeral had poetry and memories, and they held the wake at the Greyhound Pub in Crawley. There was a segregated area for the mourners and plenty of people from the past attended. School friends, college mates, colleagues, friends, and family were all present, looking smart in an incredibly sombre affair. Everyone was so kind and sweet to him, it meant a lot and in a strange way he didn’t want it to end. Jason thought that if when it ends so does their marriage.
Jason had to take months off work before he could get out of his depression and fully function again. His father took him to the doctor who gave him antidepressants, and he began to exercise outside which made him feel better and he wanted to live again. The thoughts of reuniting with Zara had subsided, he burned the letters he had left for loved ones. No one ever knew how close he came to making the ultimate final decision.
Jason felt differently about life after Zara. Part of him felt like it was a new start but another part of him felt like he didn’t care anymore. It gave him a strange feeling of freedom; he was as low as he could get so had nothing to lose, he felt untouchable.
He reverted back to his passion which was mathematics. He studied many different theories and became obsessed with the Fibonacci sequence. For weeks he would look into the importance of how it features in nature. The numbers and ratios in the sequence can be found in the patterns of petals of flowers, the whorls of a pinecone, and the leaves on stems. He loved finding new Fibonacci numbers in dates and structures and attempted to figure out the importance of them. It helped pass the time and gave himself some focus.
Eventually he found the strength to sort himself out and went back into work. Everyone was lovely to him, and he was eased back in. It was really nice and after a few days it was back to normal, and he was pleased for the routine it brought. However, going home was hard. Driving back knowing there was no one to spend the evenings with was a difficult way of life he had to get used to.
Four months later his grandfather died, he was ninety and was living in a care home. Jason and his family were upset but people don’t tend to live forever, and his grandfather enjoyed his time on the planet. He was in the Royal Navy as a young man, he then worked on the ferries for years, he had three children and five grandchildren. His grandmother was still alive but too ill to attend the funeral, which was such a shame.
Inevitably, the funeral brought back memories of his wife’s funeral, but Jason remained strong. The black suit was reused, and the service was lovely. He enjoyed meeting up with his family and this time he was able to relax and mourn his grandfather with happy memories. He loved to hear the stories about his grandfather from his old colleagues on the ferries, his Royal Navy mates had died years ago. When he got home Jason realised how much he enjoyed it, it felt strange to enjoy a funeral, but he did, it was like the old TV show “This Is Your Life.”
After a few weeks he decided to accompany his mother to visit his grandmother, Jason wanted to make an effort. The care home was lovely and had a well-kept garden, there were blue hydrangeas and Japanese maple trees, with a small pond in the corner. Unfortunately, his grandmother was unable to spend time outside as she had to stay in bed.
Jason loved seeing his grandmother, even though she wasn’t well, but he enjoyed the environment. He went back several times and got familiar with staff and some of the elderly residents. He found it peaceful and calm, he spoke and listened to the residents, he even had his dinner there sometimes, it was a better option than going home.
Life inside a care home is filled with death. The longer he spent time there, the more death he saw, it lingers around the corridors. This time though the sadness was replaced with relief and happiness as they were usually suffering. Jason went to every funeral. He said it was to support the families, but the reality was he enjoyed them. Jason would stand court and relive stories about the times he had spent with the deceased. The compassion, appreciation and attention was exactly what he craved.
The more he went to, the more he sought out. He would search through obituaries for local funerals of strangers. He would don his black suit and gate crash them with made up cover stories for the real mourners.
Then things took a turn for the worse. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Jason had seen his grandmother and was walking around the garden with Ted. Ted was feeling a bit chesty, so Jason helped him back to his room. Ted lay down and Jason got him a drink of water, as he put the drink on the table Ted screamed out in pain. Jason called out for help and the onsite nurse took over. Ted wished him well and left.
When Jason got home, he was thinking about Ted, then he thought it would be nice to have another funeral to go to, he was addicted, like a user needing another hit. After all Ted was old and he’d knew him quite well, he could mingle with the family and relive old memories and good times. The following week Jason went back to the care home and poor Ted was in a bad way. Jason went into see him and Ted was breathing through an oxygen tube, he looked awful, and Jason hated to see him in pain. When Jason was alone with Ted, he knew what he had to do. He wanted to help Ted, so he squeezed the oxygen tube with his hand. Ted’s face reddened and his eyes bulged, Jason squeezed Ted’s nostrils with his other hand and Ted passed away with horror in his eyes. Jason tidied things up and went to see his grandmother. Around ten minutes later as Jason was leaving, he passed Ted’s room and could see a few members of staff standing around Ted’s bed. Jason hadn’t reflected on the gravity of the situation; his brain felt like leaves in autumn.
The following week Jason had a delightful day at Ted’s funeral. He met the family and spoke with great enthusiasm about his time with Ted. They laughed and cried together, drank beer and ate quiche and vol-au-vents. Jason couldn’t get enough of this feeling; he was the light in the darkness for the mourners.
The following week poor old Edna became unwell and then Hilda, the list went on and on. No body suspected a thing, and when one person died another person moved in. Jason convinced himself that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, he was just moving things on a bit quicker than nature would have. He just needed his grandmother to stay alive, so he had an ongoing list of victims. The system he’d created was perfect, like a conveyor belt of ego boosting satisfaction. He had nine victims under his belt over the last few years, and he was supplementing those funerals with gate crashing stranger's weddings.
It was at one of these strangers' funerals where he’d met someone. It was bizarre and towards the end of the funeral a woman confronted him.
“I know what you’re up to Jason?”
“What do you mean? I’m not up to anything.” Replied Jason.
She continued, “I know your game, you’re attending funerals of people you don’t know. I know Jason because I do the same. Just tell me why?”
Jason turned white and felt embarrassed, this was the first time he had ever been confronted about this. He said,
“Okay, you’ve got me, I know it’s weird, but I just fell into it, I can’t stop. Can we go for a coffee to talk?”
They went for a drink at Devils Dyke to discuss their mutual strange habit of gate-crashing funerals. She seemed nice and was addicted to the attention and compassion herself. They had agreed to team up and go together for future funerals, it kind of made sense. That way they only needed one cover story.
After four funerals, which included his grandmothers, they just stopped going to anymore, they didn’t need to, they had fallen in love. The need for companionship and love from strangers was no longer required, they were enough for each other. It was no longer just the two of them, Alana, his new partner was pregnant, it was perfect.
When people ask them how they met, they say they were two lost souls that had something secret in common (maybe one more than the other).
The End
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