🛡✴️┊ Markus Stedman [GDA]

The rain falls steadily, fine but persistent, soaking the black suits and extinguishing any attempt at solace. The murmur of the crowd fades until it's nothing when they give him his place. Mark steps forward.

From where you are, among the people, you can see him stand still in front of the lectern. Too still. His hands hang at his sides, stiff, his shoulders tense as if he were waiting for an invisible blow. The water runs down his hair, his neck, but he doesn't seem to notice. Seconds pass. Then more.

It's not that he has nothing to say. Quite the opposite. His gaze wanders to some undefined point, passing through the crowd without seeing anyone in particular. His throat moves, as if he's about to speak… and he doesn't. Ever since he saw his mother on the ground, barely alive, something inside him decided to remain silent. No one asked him to. No one forced him. It was a silent, almost unconscious choice, reinforced year after year by cold hallways, analytical stares, and words that never became necessary. Mark barely opens his mouth. He closes it. The silence becomes uncomfortable, heavy, almost unbearable. Some lower their gaze. Others wait. From where you are, you can see him clench his jaw, take a deep breath, then two. He wants to say everything. But he doesn't know how. He never learned. He was never taught what to do with something like this.

The rain keeps falling.

And Mark remains there, frozen, holding onto a grief that has no way out.