***

Sunday morning almost taunted Daria with its beauty. There was considerable warmth in the sun, and the birds loudly announced that this was going to be a beautiful day. How wrong they were. Daria checked her watch: 9 a.m. The service would be at eleven. That left her just enough time to take a shower, get dressed, have some breakfast and get over to church - all without having to rush. She looked out the window at the clear blue sky with the occasional cloud which looked almost like cotton candy. What disharmony when compared to the darkness within her. She had felt a little better after the talk she had had with Jane, but next morning she had found two blankets on top of her. Her ordinary blanket and also one made of anxiety. The latter had lain upon her all day and while completely invisible to the outside observer it weighed as if it had been made of lead.

Daria knew better than to say anything. She knew that it would get her nothing but the satisfaction of spending all of next week in this house. Instead she swallowed her anger and ate breakfast in silence, spending most of the time picturing Helen's slow death at her hands. She wondered what it would feel like to actually strangle a person to death. How hard would she fight back? Would her face turn blue before she lost consciousness? Would there be any interesting crushing sounds from cartilage or something like that? She quickly finished her breakfast and left the kitchen as quickly as possible.

Daria's wardrobe wasn't exactly a sight for sore eyes. In fact it would probably have taken less than five minutes to catalogue every item in it - including the stuff in the sock drawer. She wasn't even sure how one was supposed to dress for an occasion like this, but she decided that anything plain and black would probably do. She dressed quickly. She wanted to get out of this house inhabited by people she couldn't stand, before she went crazy.

The church was just a few minutes walk away and since Daria had left the house earlier than planned she walked quite slowly. She looked at the trees growing beside the road. The sun shone through the foliage and left fine barely visible rays in the now already dissipating morning mist. Daria stopped and looked. It really was beautiful - too bad it was pointless, just as everything else. Mother Nature should know better than to waste sights like this on people who couldn't appreciate them. Daria walked through the cemetery slowly. She looked in the direction she knew the grave was - and of course it was still there. A hole in the ground with a pile of dirt next to it: It seemed - and it was - very final. Daria looked around at the vast rows of crosses and headstones. "Here lies a lot of nice people." She thought. "Nice, because they all have something in common - they're dead." That was more than she could say about her family, which was constantly annoying her.

People only saw death as a problem - they never saw it as what Jodie had seen, and Daria too had begun to see: The Solution. People were scared when they heard that there were enough nuclear weapons on this planet to obliterate all life on it fifty times over. They never saw the potential of it: No more sorrow, no more injustice, no more evil, no more human suffering. All the problems could be solved with one swift stroke. People feared death. Could there be anything more foolish. Death was the only completely certain event in one's life. If one feared death one had the options of either walking through life in constant fear, or walking through life in foolish denial. And how much more horrifying would the hospital bed not feel after a life in denial? What lies would one tell oneself when Death was so close that one could feel Him breathing down one's neck? No, he who didn't think about death didn't think about life - and he who didn't think about life was hardly thinking at all.

She entered the church and took a seat pretty far in the back. The air was still cool inside and Daria actually shivered a little. The coffin was already in place. Daria noted that the lid was on - apparently Jodie's parents didn't want to turn any more attention to how she had died. Typical. They probably realised who were to blame and now they just wanted to cover it up as efficiently as possible. Daria was actually surprised that she cared. The action of Jodie's parents was of course just as irrelevant as everything else in this universe, yet she felt indignation because of it. Well, people weren't guided by logic alone... Why would she be any different? She tried to get her mind off all of it and to think about Jodie instead - and much to her own surprise she felt nothing when she did. Not even a week ago she had felt immense sadness. Now there was just a big nothing inside her soul. Perhaps her emotions were following her mind after all; they were just lagging behind a bit...

Just at that moment the bells of the church started pounding out their rich vibrating sound. Ask not for whom the bell tolls... it tolls for thee. The phrase suddenly made more sense to Daria than it ever had before. It was hopeless. No matter where she was or what she did everything seemed to scream to her "It doesn't matter!" She felt like she was running a gauntlet where every single thing she passed reminded her of her own nothingness. She didn't know how much longer she could take it, but there was seemingly no end to this run. She looked at the coffin again - if it only were her lying inside it. If it only were her they would cover with dirt.

The organ started playing a tune. Daria didn't recognise it, but the music definitely matched her mood - it was probably the most depressing psalm in the book. She wondered if this kind of music was available on CD. It would be great to have on a sunny day like this. After the music was over the priest ascended the pulpit and started talking. Daria didn't really feel like listening to what he had to say. His words felt empty. Empty hope, and empty promises meant as consolation for the people in the benches. He spoke of the sorrow that everyone felt... Sorrow, Daria thought. A week ago she had felt sorrow too, but now? Wasn't mourning just a pathetic excuse to pity yourself? Why did one in fact mourn? For the sake of the one who had died? Why would one have any reason to do that? The dead were dead, and the dead felt nothing. Why was that something to mourn? No, to mourn was in fact to feel pity for oneself. To think about all the pleasant moments one had had with the deceased, and mourn the fact that these memories would not be continued. Or to just pity oneself because of the "Memento Mori" that this event whispered into one's ear. How pathetic. But was that really the whole truth? Had she not in fact experienced something else too a week ago? It was hard to tell and Daria didn't like the thought of using emotional "argumentation" against logical such.

The priest stopped talking, stepped down from the pulpit and went over to the coffin. It would seem he was going to go through with the blessing already - apparently Jodie's parents had requested a brief ceremony. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust - it summed it all up pretty well. Daria looked around the church at the other people in it. She was willing to bet that no more than half of them had really believed in anything the priest had said about God and eternal life. What did the other half do to preserve their world view? What prevented them from seeing the emptiness of it all? What enabled them to go home after this service and go on with their lives as if not much had happened? Did they just erect a huge mental blockade toward all of it, or what? She just couldn't figure out how people were thinking - if they were...

Six men stood up, and went over to the coffin. The ceremony was all but finished and it was time to carry Jodie to her final resting-place. The organ started playing Chopin's well-known funeral march and if the atmosphere in the church hadn't been gloomy before, it definitely was now. The men picked up the coffin and slowly carried it away. After the coffin was out in the sunlight, the rest of the people quietly joined the procession. Daria too joined sheepishly trying not to look at the other people. She didn't know why she didn't want to see them - she just didn't.

The distance to the grave was not too great, but neither was the pace of the procession and so it took almost ten minutes to get there. When finally reaching the spot Daria decided to stay at some distance away, leaving the "front row" if one could call it that, on an occasion like this, to the family members and closer relatives. It was then that she noticed she was standing next to someone she didn't know. It was an old man, maybe sixty to seventy years old. He definitely had no connection to Lawndale High, and he didn't look like he was family either - he was white. He was dressed in a way that seemed - although very respectful and thus completely compatible with the situation - quite warm for the weather. He too seemed to let everyone else get close as if he felt he didn't quite belong here. In his hand he was holding a hat that he apparently would have used to cover his almost completely bald scalp with, had he not been paying respects. His face was almost expressionless and his eyes were focused at the grave. Daria could not help but wonder who this person was.

The lowering of the coffin also went faster than Daria had expected. The priest held another short speech, but Daria didn't hear most of it because she was too far away. After that a temporary lid was placed on top of the grave and the relatives placed their flowers on top of it. Mr. O'Neill was also there delivering a wreath on the behalf of Lawndale High. Daria gave it a brief glance and it made her feel sick. It was blue and yellow - the official colours of the school. It had obviously been chosen by Ms. Li. Daria thought it looked more like a misplaced advertising sign than a sign of actual respect. But it was only to be expected, wasn't it? If nothing was sacred - and why would anything be - would it not be foolish to expect people to behave as if it was? People slowly started to leave. Most of them were heading for the parish house where there would be a memorial ceremony, but Daria wasn't going there - it was strictly for the family. Instead she started to slowly head back home.