Fiction

Urn

She didn’t know whose ashes they were. She didn’t know if she should feel sad or what, but she’d tell herself to sing. And sometimes play the piano keys.

Behind her, a bay window gave onto the district. The sun rose over the houses and the lush, pretty gardened streets and the people there and their unthinkable lives while she sat, singing. She sang to the urn on the bookshelf in the morning as the light gushed through the window and glinted in three-starred spots on the dull metal of the urn. The urn. The ashes she didn’t know.

She didn’t know, sometimes, the urn contained ashes at all. And this sense – like wading through a liquid – made her mind ache.

Every morning a woman knocked. Sometimes alone and other times with a man and two children. She didn’t know their names and felt uneasy about letting them in, but it was probably better than fighting them off. They would leave sooner if she didn’t fight.

One of them, the little boy, had a face she couldn’t place. A movie star she’d once liked or a famous politician. She’d have preferred him not to come. Once she asked the woman who he was; the woman said his name, but she’d since lost it. Or the woman didn’t say it loud enough. Probably the latter. She didn’t like the woman much. Her pointy chin and long nose. She looked like a witch sometimes and the boy looked like the famous man.

Once she asked them openly if they’d mind if he stopped coming. She said, you’re okay, meaning the little girl, and you’re okay, meaning the man and the woman, but I don’t like him in my house. They all left quickly.

As for the song, she remembered the words. The melody lived inside her and she sang it tunefully, never missing the notes, always holding the pauses, letting their sweet drift carry her off. She opened her eyes once to find herself standing in the kitchen, holding the urn and singing softly to it, turning it in her hands as if it were a piece of fruit she was going to buy. How long since she’d done that? Gone to the shops and picked her way through produce, hefting and lightly touching?

And what was she doing here in this house, stuck somehow like a record gets stuck? Tomorrow she would go to the shops. Knowing herself, she left a note: “Go to shops,” signed “Melanie”.

The next day, the woman came again. A very quick hug, as if the woman didn’t know if she should, and Melanie didn’t either and simply stood limp while the woman hugged her.

They drank tea and sat by the window. She thought she saw the woman eyeing the urn and stood, dropping her teacup. The hot water burnt her leg. She didn’t mind so much the pain and even let the woman fuss about her stockinged thighs, huffing as if put out, saying the word “sorry” over and over.

“Oh, stop, stop,” said Melanie. She walked towards the urn, the woman on her knees behind her, and reached up then stopped and turned around and there the woman was, staring fixedly.

She went to the shops as planned, walking unsteadily along the footpath. Coles wasn’t where it used to be and she spent a good chunk of the day wandering outside among bins and old cardboard boxes. A man came and asked her what she needed. When he’d gone, she took it upon herself to leave that smelly place. She didn’t know where to be or what to do but she could walk well enough.

The next day she sat at her piano and sang to the urn while the woman used the phone. She hoped the woman would hurry, but each time she finished, she dialled another number.

That night the woman stayed and even though she wished the woman hadn’t, she didn’t make a fuss. They watched news and after it some other show about oddly shaped buildings where parents took their children. She didn’t like the way the air looked underneath that glass, an eerie blue light. She didn’t like the slimy fishes either, the way they hovered in the water, their big copper whiskers bristling. Another world, she thought, and once more found herself looking up, over the television, at the urn.

It happened that she was in a different house and the sense of not knowing whose threw her for some time. She sat by a window while it rained and looked across a wide lawn. It must’ve rained for weeks. The way the water hit the glass, splitting into separate little worms, reminded her of something.

The woman came one day and with her came the little boy; they sat outside. The rain had stopped. The grass smelt of her own sweat. The boy still looked like the famous man and the woman like a witch. In the sun she closed her eyes and soon enough they left.

But one night in her bed she saw him. He hovered through the window, in the moonlight. She sat up, trembling, and asked him who he was. She couldn’t place his face again but he was as famous as they came; the slyness made her scream so loud and with such force that soon she’d screamed herself to sleep.

The woman came again, this time with the man, and they sat beside each other. A rug across her knees. After what felt like a very long time, she spoke.

“Don’t bring him here again.”

“Okay,” said the woman.

“We understand,” said the man.

“We brought this,” said the woman, producing from a bag a strange metal pot. It gleamed in the vague light sifting through the window. She took it from the woman. She didn’t know why she’d brought this here. She felt a sudden urge to sing, but then it left and when it did the words did too and the melody; there was silence. They waited through it. They waited for the bus she’d heard was coming too. She only hoped they’d bought tickets for themselves. Or not, in fact. She wondered, maybe, if she might get from this point entirely on her own.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 2, 2025 as "Urn".

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