The Big Fish by Madison Henley (best free e reader .TXT) 📕

her shoulder. Keliah quickly turned around and was faced with a tall man dressed in a dark suit who appeared to be maybe a security guard.

"Employees are over here, miss."

"Oh, I'm not an employee."

"Family?"

"No, I am a- "

Keliah paused, looking for the right word.

"Friend."

She said slowly, testing the word out on her lips.

"of Georgia's.

"I do apologize ma'am."

The man turned away and Keliah turned back to face Georgia.

“Yeah, I know. But I’ll be alright. I appreciate it  Karen.”

The woman whispered quiet blessings in Georgia’s ears before giving her one last tight squeeze and turned away to greet the rest of the people in the church. Soon the talking had quieted down and everyone grabbed his or her seats when the pastor showed up. Georgia sat in the first row and ordered Keliah with her eyes to sit beside her. So Keliah did. Keliah crossed her legs and smoothed out her black dress with her hands and watched as the pastor spoke. He talked about what a great man Mr. Kerouac was, fighting that terrible battle of lung cancer, and being the strongest man he could be up until his final days. Keliah tried to tune out the pastor’s sermon. She wasn’t really into sadness and all of that. She hated funerals. They made her feel awkward and she always feared that she would do something that would cause uproar so she always skipped the funerals. Instead of focusing on the sermon, Keliah focused on Georgia sitting beside from her. Her jaws were loose, instead of always being clenched; her soft pink lips inadvertently poked out into a pout as she listened to the sermon and she blinked constantly. Keliah nearly jumped out of her seat when Georgia flicked her eyes over to Keliah’s and caught her right in the middle of her gawking. Keliah had the expression of an apology but Georgia simply just stared at her with glossy eyes that looked lost inside, and turned her attention back to the sermon.

***

After locking the door to her condo, Georgia threw her keys into the bowl in the kitchen and took off her wet trench coat not caring she placed it on the suede couch. Georgia paced her living room floor three or four times before Keliah interrupted her.

“Georgia, I’m really sorry.”

Georgia shrugged her shoulders and looked everywhere in the room but into Keliah’s eyes. She couldn’t bear to do that.

“You know what? I…I just need some alone time right now. You stay right here until I get back okay? Don’t leave.”

Georgia grabbed her keys from kitchen bowl and disappeared out the door. Keliah sat on Georgia’s rather comfortable couch and sat up straight. She looked around, taking the view of Georgia’s expensive condominium all in. What was she possibly going to do in her professor’s apartment? Keliah removed her high heels and placed them neatly in front of the couch before standing up and walking around the entire house. Keliah spent most of her time glancing at the many pictures there were hanging up. There was this one that stood out to Keliah. It was a picture of a young Mr. Kerouac and Georgia going fishing together. Georgia looked around six years of age. They had matching smiles, and carried large bass in their hands. Another one was of Georgia when she was a little older holding a gold medal in her hand. Her front two teeth were missing and it shattered Keliah’s heart to know that Georgia would never smile like that little girl in the picture. Not today. Keliah decided to stop poking around her professor’s home and went to go sit back down on the couch. She looked over at the stove and saw that only four minutes had passed. Where in the hell did Georgia go and why did she leave her all by herself in this foreign place? Keliah searched through movies of Georgia’s to entertain herself but only found action films based off of killing; not really the mood Keliah was going for right now. Keliah grabbed the remote and flicked on the widescreen television to Netflix. She immediately clicked the comedy genre. She needed something to uplift her spirits. Keliah settled for a funny movie and grabbed the green blanket slouched over the couch sitting across from her and tucked herself in as she pressed start. The light tap of the rain outside, and the emptiness vibe that Keliah was getting from Georgia’s home was enough to put her to sleep. Keliah tried to force herself to stay up, thinking it would be rude to sleep at Georgia’s house giving she really hardly knew the woman outside of being her teacher but Keliah spent all of the previous night searching for the perfect outfit to wear to the funeral and debating on whether she was actually truly invited that she got a total of five hours of sleep. Keliah muzzled her chin into the amazingly soft blanket and found her eyelids getting too heavy to lift anymore.

***

Georgia sat in front of her father’s grave and picked up the mud that created puddles around her as the heavy rain fell on her head, coating her in a slick wetness. Maybe it was a little too cliché for Georgia to be sitting there but Georgia really didn’t want to be anywhere else except with her father. Georgia took another long sip of her beer and swished it around her mouth before swallowing, hoping it would wash out the pain that had fulfilled her body. It didn’t do anything. The pain still remained, Georgia just couldn’t think as clear.

In Loving Memory of Reginald Kerouac