Echo Beach – 06 – Darkness creeping up
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Tasmin

Tasmin felt suffocated.

The funeral chapel was packed, and shouldn’t have surprised her. After all Dr. Burnes was a big man at the local university, had a lot of admirers and rivals and everyone on them wanted a piece of his last chunk of life on Earth. Honestly, she would have preferred not to come, and worked more on figuring out the best way she was going find the proper light frequencies for the tablets, but socially she really didn’t have a choice but drag on whatever black dress she had available to her and make an appearance. Not appearing might make people suspicious, or worth concerned. 

And then there was the eulogy she was supposed to speak. Argh.

But at least she could find a place in a quiet corner and let everyone else chat with each other about the great man while she more or less connected back with the distractions available on her smartphone. Tinder had a new upgrade! And Mixxer looked very, very interesting right now. 

But like all good things, it wasn’t going to last. Glancing up she spotted Nora making her way over in her more appropriate full-length black dress with a less than approving look in her face. Nora did not like to see she wasn’t treating the funeral with the respect it deserved. Firstly, she thought Tasmin’s choice of outfit showed way too much skin.

Tasmin, however, needed the distraction, and for reasons she hadn’t shared with Nora. There had been too many people coming by and saying things like, “I’m so sorry. It must have been so difficult, blah blah blah. And even if she couldn’t blame them, it all did serve to return her thoughts to things she did not want to deal with, at least not yet – getting lost in the Al’Matahat Taht Al’Sakhra, all those guns pointed at her, being locked in a cold stone cell, the events leading to Andy’s death or what the French paratrooper told her when the rescue finally showed up.

“Tu es le seul que nous ayons trouvé vivant dans l'enceinte, mademoiselle,” the man had told her, a look of horror written all over his face. 

They’d gotten her out too quickly for her to see what scared the man so much, and she hadn’t been in any shape to argue.

“Compartmentalizing is the only thing that has kept me sane,” Rebecca had once confessed. “Without that, I’d have lost it a long time ago.”

She’s lasted eighteen years. It was a decent goal.

Eventually, Tasmin had been able to find herself a spot by the corner, glass of wine in one hand and was able to do something about her boredom. In this case, check out who was new and local on the dating sites since she’d been away. 

“What are you doing?” her sister asked in a scandalized tone as she swiped again. 

Luckily there wasn’t too much scandalous to view, since Columbus wasn’t really a hotbed of anything.

“Just whiling away the time until this is over,” Tasmin told her. “You know I don’t like funerals. You know I hate being dragged to ones even more.”

“But this is for was Dr. Burnes,” Nora almost whined and then she huffed and put her hand over the phone. “Hey, some of those guys are naked! That is not appropriate, Tasmin.”

There were too many times Nora thought she was the older sister. To many.

Tasmin tried to mover her sister’s hand away but it was difficult with no free hand to do it , so she swallowed the rest of her wine and put the glass down and then shoved the interfering hand away.

“Well, it’s truth in advertising Nora,” she said, and then lowered her voice. “Not all of us have access to the kind of sex you get whenever you want!”

Her sister immediately flushed red and glanced around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear the accusation.

“That’s not what he- it is,” her sister forced out. “And don’t try to change the subject. Swiping on Mixxer is not appropriate for a funeral. And no, I didn’t bring him, with me. Harold does not like to be reminded of his... condition.”

Tasmin sighed. 

“Sorry sis, that wasn’t fair,” Tasmin apologized. “I know you want me to me go around and let the good people offer me all their condolences of what a terrible loss we’ve all suffered?”

She looked into her sister’s surprised gaze. Nora seemed to have expected more of a fight. Tasmin was starting to get worried her sister might be figuring out what her actual state of mind was.

“Well I guess you could do that,” she agreed. “I mean he was. It is.”

And so Tasmin reluctantly put her phone back down and saved her swiping for later, and tried to figure out a different way to keep the darkness she felt creeping up on her at bay.

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