It's Still Life

5 of 27: Gravebright – a Colour once felt, not seen—A smile worn only at funerals

5 of 27: Gravebright – A smile worn only at funerals

The gravel shifts beneath her boots as she steps out of the car, snow mounded as quiet witness along the hedgerows—the priest waiting at the church door with a practised smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Felreil stands by the iron gate, still as ivy, and watches her enter the nave where candles line the aisle in flickering grace, and the scent of lilies grips the air like a soft hand.

She doesn’t cry—not because she’s strong, but because her body has no language left for grief, only posture, only breath held like glass in the throat.

When someone hugs her, she smiles—the kind of smile people need to see, the kind that says I’m still here when what it really means is I haven’t fallen yet.

Felreil watches the light shift across her face, sees the smile settle like dust on stone, and knows she has become what Gravebright always requires: a mourner too polished to break—because if she does, everyone else will too, and her grief would give them the warrant to fall apart with her.

And when she kneels at the coffin, it’s not to pray—it’s to steady herself against the altar of everything she was never allowed to say aloud.

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Want to go deeper with Gravebright? The long-form liturgy for this Colour is here: Read Gravebright – (the colour of a smile only worn at funerals) (the liturgy is a stream-of-consciousness poem. If you haven’t read the brief Prologue (or Before) post, it be useful in understanding this series.

Previous Instalments – To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link

Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story including the word “warrant”.  Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.