The Sack of Rice

The entire street saw my son hand me the rice.

It was a hot afternoon in Bellweather, the kind of heat that made the pavement shimmer and turned every smell sharper. Fried onions from the corner deli. Gasoline from the old pumps. Wet cardboard behind the grocery store.

And shame.

Shame has a smell too, if you have lived long enough to recognize it.

My son, Caleb, stood in front of Mason’s Market wearing the gray suit I had bought him for his first job interview fifteen years earlier. It fit him better now. His shoulders were broader, his jaw sharper, his eyes colder than I remembered.

In his hands was a twenty-pound sack of jasmine rice.

He pushed it toward me like he was handing scraps to a stray dog.

“Take it and go, Mom,” he said.

Loud enough for everyone to hear.

The street went quiet in that awful way people do when they want to watch cruelty but pretend they are above it. A woman holding a bakery bag slowed down. Two teenagers stopped laughing. Mr. Givens, who owned the hardware store, looked away as if eye contact would make him responsible.

I stood there in my faded blue coat, both hands gripping the handle of my shopping cart.

My knees ached.

My mouth went dry.

For a second, I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Only that my son was looking at me like I was a burden he wanted the world to see him discard.

“Caleb,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

His eyes flicked over my shoulder.

Not at me.

Behind me.

Across the street, a black Mercedes idled at the curb.

The passenger window was tinted, but not enough.

I could see a pale hand resting against the glass.

His wife.

Vivian.

Beautiful Vivian with the diamond tennis bracelet and soft church voice. Vivian who had once kissed my cheek and called me “Mom” while measuring my house with her eyes. Vivian who cried at family dinners whenever Caleb mentioned his father’s will.

Caleb’s face hardened.

“I said take it,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for this.”

Something cracked inside me.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just a small private sound only I could hear.

The sound of a mother realizing the child she carried through fever and hunger and debt could still learn how to wound her in public.

I reached for the rice.

It was heavier than I expected.

My hands trembled under the weight.

Someone whispered, “Poor thing.”

Another voice said, “He must be struggling.”

That was when I did what mothers do when their children hurt them.

I protected him.

“He’s just struggling,” I whispered.

I said it to the street.

To myself.

Maybe even to God.

Caleb’s jaw tightened, but he did not soften. He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell his cologne under the heat.

Then, without moving his lips much, he said something so quietly I almost missed it.

“Don’t look back.”

My heart stopped.

“What?”

His voice rose again, cruel and public.

“And don’t come around the house anymore. You hear me?”

A few people gasped.

Vivian’s Mercedes engine purred across the street.

Caleb turned away from me like the conversation was over.

Like I was over.

I stood there holding that sack of rice while the town watched me shrink.

Then I walked.

One step.

Then another.

My cart rattled beside me, one wheel squeaking with every turn. I kept my head down because if I looked at anyone, I would break.

Past the flower shop.

Past the pharmacy.

Past the church bulletin board where my name was still taped under “volunteers needed.”

Only when I turned behind the abandoned laundromat did I let the sack slide from my arms onto the cracked concrete.

I bent over it, breathing hard.

My hands were shaking now, not from weakness.

From Caleb’s whisper.

Don’t look back.

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and reached for the rice, meaning to lift it again.

That was when I felt something stiff beneath the plastic seam.

Not rice.

Paper.

My fingers dug under the folded edge.

A white envelope slid out.

My name was written across the front.

Margaret Elaine Whitaker.

Not Mom.

Not Mrs. Whitaker.

My full legal name.

The handwriting was Caleb’s.

I tore it open with shaking fingers.

Inside was a note.

Only one sentence.

I had to humiliate you because if she knew the truth, she would destroy everything.

The alley tilted.

My knees buckled, and I caught myself against the damp brick wall.

For a moment, all I could hear was blood rushing in my ears.

Then a second piece of paper slipped from the envelope and landed faceup on the ground.

It was not a note.

It was a copy of a document.

At the top, in bold black letters, were three words that turned the afternoon into ice.

Certificate of Death.

And the name printed beneath it was mine.

The Woman in the Black Mercedes

I do not remember walking home.

I remember fragments.

The squeak of the cart wheel.

The rice sack dragging slightly because my hands had gone numb.

A child’s red balloon stuck in a gutter.

My own name printed on a death certificate.

Margaret Elaine Whitaker.

Date of death: three days earlier.

Cause: cardiac arrest.

Place: St. Agnes Care Residence.

I had never been to St. Agnes Care Residence.

I had not had a cardiac arrest.

And unless hell had a grocery store, I was very much alive.

By the time I reached my small white house on Alder Lane, my blouse was soaked through with sweat. I locked the door behind me. Then I locked the deadbolt. Then the chain. Then I pushed my old sewing table against it, though I knew how ridiculous that was.

Fear makes furniture feel like armor.

I spread the papers on the kitchen table.

There was more tucked inside the envelope.

A storage locker key.

A photocopy of a bank withdrawal.

A photograph of my signature on a legal form I had never signed.

And another note from Caleb.

Go to the bus station locker before midnight. Do not call me. Do not call the police from your phone. She is watching both of us.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

She.

Vivian.

My mind tried to reject it.

Vivian arranged flowers for the church altar. Vivian brought lemon cake to sick neighbors. Vivian always knew exactly when to put a hand on someone’s arm and lower her voice.

But I had seen her eyes when my husband, Thomas, died.

Not tears.

Calculation.

Thomas had left me the house, two rental buildings downtown, and a small but valuable piece of farmland outside Bellweather. Nothing extravagant by old-money standards, but enough to make me independent. Enough to keep Caleb safe if he ever needed help.

And enough, apparently, to make me worth killing on paper.

My phone buzzed.

I nearly screamed.

The screen showed Caleb’s name.

I reached for it, then stopped.

Do not call me.

The buzzing ended.

A message appeared.

Mom, I’m sorry. Please don’t make this harder.

My throat closed.

Another message followed.

Vivian thinks you’re confused. If anyone asks, you came by the market begging. You looked unwell. I had to make it believable.

I gripped the edge of the table.

Believable for whom?

Then the third message arrived.

The funeral is tomorrow.

The room went very still.

I read it once.

Twice.

Three times.

No.

No, that was impossible.

You cannot bury a living woman.

You cannot sign grief into existence and expect the body to follow.

But then I remembered something my late husband used to say when he worked probate cases in the county courthouse.

Paper beats truth if truth arrives too late.

My hands went cold.

I turned on the small radio by the sink, just to have another human voice in the room. A weather report crackled through static. Thunderstorms after midnight. Heavy winds. Possible road closures.

Midnight.

The bus station locker.

I had six hours.

I changed clothes slowly, carefully, as if preparing for court. Dark trousers. Walking shoes. Thomas’s old raincoat. I tucked the death certificate into the lining of my purse.

Then I went to the bathroom mirror.

An old woman looked back.

Gray hair pinned too tightly. Pale face. Deep lines around the mouth. Eyes that had spent too many years forgiving things they should have named.

I leaned closer.

“You are not dead,” I whispered.

The words helped.

Not much.

But enough.

At 8:15, headlights swept across my curtains.

I froze.

The car slowed outside my house.

A black Mercedes.

My breath caught so hard it hurt.

The car idled for nearly a minute.

Then my phone rang again.

This time it was not Caleb.

Unknown number.

I let it ring.

The voicemail notification appeared.

I pressed play with my thumb shaking.

Vivian’s voice filled my kitchen, soft as silk.

“Margaret, sweetheart. Caleb told me about your little episode today. We’re all very worried about you. Please stay home tonight. It would be terrible if something happened before tomorrow.”

A pause.

Then her voice changed.

Barely.

But enough to reveal the blade beneath the velvet.

“Dead women should not wander.”

The line clicked.

Outside, the Mercedes pulled away.

I stood in the dark kitchen, listening to the engine fade.

And for the first time since Caleb handed me that rice, I understood the humiliation was not the cruelty.

It was the warning.

Because if Vivian was willing to bury me on paper while I was still breathing, then whatever waited inside that bus station locker was not just evidence.

It was the reason she had decided I needed to disappear.

Locker 17

The Bellweather bus station had not changed in thirty years.

It still smelled of diesel, burnt coffee, old newspapers, and people leaving places they once swore they would never abandon. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. A vending machine hummed in the corner with three empty rows and one trapped bag of pretzels dangling from a coil.

I kept my hood low.

Every shadow felt occupied.

Every reflection felt like a witness.

The lockers were near the back wall, beside a pay phone that probably had not worked since 1998.

Locker 17.

The little brass key in my hand felt warm by then, as if it had absorbed my fear.

I inserted it.

For one terrible second, it stuck.

Then it turned.

Click.

The sound echoed through the station.

Inside was a brown file box, the kind accountants use for tax records. My name was written on the lid in black marker.

I carried it to the farthest bench and sat with my back against the wall.

Inside the box were copies of my life.

My deed.

My bank statements.

My medical records.

A power of attorney document naming Vivian Whitaker as my legal guardian.

A petition for emergency conservatorship.

A letter from a doctor I had never met claiming I suffered from severe cognitive decline and paranoid delusions.

And beneath it all, photographs.

My kitchen.

My bedroom.

My medicine cabinet.

Me asleep in my recliner.

Someone had been inside my house.

Not once.

Many times.

My stomach turned.

Then I found the flash drive.

A yellow sticky note was wrapped around it.

Watch this somewhere safe. Trust only Nora Bell.

Nora Bell.

The name struck me like a hand on the shoulder from the past.

Nora had been my husband’s paralegal for twenty-two years. Sharp eyes. Sharper tongue. She remembered birthdays, court dates, and every lie ever told in her presence.

She lived above the old law office downtown.

I closed the box and stood.

That was when I saw him.

Across the station.

A man in a navy coat pretending to study the ticket schedule.

He was too still.

Too clean.

Too interested in nothing.

My heart began to pound.

I moved toward the exit.

He moved too.

Not fast.

Not openly.

But with purpose.

I stepped outside into the damp evening air. The first rain had begun to fall, light and cold. I turned left toward Main Street.

The footsteps followed.

My legs wanted to run.

But running draws attention, and I had already survived enough by being underestimated.

So I did what old women do best.

I became inconvenient.

I stopped abruptly in front of a taxi and slapped my palm on the hood.

The driver cursed and rolled down his window.

“Hospital,” I said loudly. “My chest.”

The man in the navy coat stopped behind me.

The taxi driver’s irritation vanished. “Get in, ma’am.”

I climbed into the back seat.

“Which hospital?”

I looked out the rear window.

The man had lifted a phone to his ear.

“Not the hospital,” I said. “Twenty-two Waverly Street. I’ll pay double.”

The driver glanced at me in the mirror.

Then at the man outside.

Then he locked the doors.

“Trouble?”

I pressed the file box to my chest.

“More than I can explain.”

He drove.

The streets blurred with rain.

Behind us, headlights pulled into traffic.

Following.

The taxi driver noticed too.

He took two sharp turns, then another, cutting through alleys behind the bakery and the old cinema. The headlights stayed with us.

“Lady,” he said quietly, “who did you make angry?”

I looked down at the file box.

“My daughter-in-law.”

He gave a humorless laugh.

“Family’s always the worst.”

By the time we reached Waverly Street, my hands had cramped around the box. I shoved cash through the partition and hurried toward the narrow stairwell beside the dark law office.

The taxi did not leave.

Bless that man.

I climbed to the second floor and knocked on Nora Bell’s door with the rhythm Thomas used years ago.

Three short.

Two long.

One short.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the chain scraped.

The door opened two inches.

Nora Bell’s left eye appeared.

She was eighty-one now, but that eye could still cross-examine a corpse.

“Margaret?” she whispered.

I lifted the file box.

“My son told me I’m dead.”

Nora opened the door.

Behind me, at the bottom of the stairs, the outside door creaked.

Someone had followed me in.

And Nora’s face changed because she saw what I could not.

She grabbed my wrist and hissed one word.

“Hide.”

The Papers That Buried Me

Nora shoved me into a pantry so small my shoulders touched both walls.

“Do not breathe loudly,” she whispered.

Then she closed the door.

Through the slats, I saw her living room in thin strips.

Warm lamplight.

Stacks of legal pads.

A framed photograph of Thomas on her bookshelf.

The knock came seconds later.

Not polite.

Not impatient.

Certain.

Nora opened the door.

“Yes?”

A man’s voice answered.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am. I’m looking for an elderly woman. Confused. Possibly dangerous to herself.”

My nails dug into my palms.

Nora did not miss a beat.

“At my age, that describes half my bridge club.”

“She may be carrying stolen documents.”

“Then call the police.”

“We’d rather handle it privately.”

We.

Not I.

Nora’s voice cooled. “Young man, I worked for attorneys before your mother taught you to lie with eye contact. Get out of my doorway.”

A pause.

Then the man laughed softly.

“Tell Mrs. Whitaker the funeral starts at ten.”

My blood went cold.

The door closed.

Nora waited until the footsteps faded before opening the pantry.

I stumbled out.

She did not comfort me.

That was not Nora’s way.

Instead, she poured two fingers of whiskey into a teacup and pushed it toward me.

“Drink. Then tell me everything.”

I did.

The rice.

The note.

The death certificate.

Vivian’s voicemail.

The locker.

Nora listened without blinking.

When I finished, she took the flash drive and plugged it into an ancient laptop that looked heavy enough to stop a bullet.

A folder opened.

Videos.

Photos.

Scanned documents.

Audio files.

The first video showed Caleb sitting in a parked car at night. He looked exhausted. Terrified.

His voice shook.

“Mom, if you’re watching this, I failed to tell you in time. Vivian has been moving money through shell charities. I found forged signatures on your property transfers. She got Dr. Pell to declare you incompetent. Tomorrow, she files the death certificate publicly and uses the funeral to prove no one questions it.”

He swallowed hard.

“She told me if I warned you, she’d accuse me of financial abuse and have you locked in St. Agnes. She already has the room paid for. She already has the medication ordered.”

My legs weakened.

Nora grabbed my elbow.

Caleb continued on the screen.

“So I had to make her believe I chose her side. I had to make everyone believe I was done with you.”

His face twisted.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

The video cut.

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

Nora opened another file.

Audio.

Vivian’s voice.

“I don’t need Margaret dead in the ground. I need her dead in the system. Once probate accepts the certificate, the farm transfers through the emergency trust amendment. Caleb won’t fight me. He’s too sentimental. That’s why public humiliation matters. Witnesses. Estrangement. Motive.”

A man answered.

“What about the old woman?”

Vivian laughed softly.

“St. Agnes handles difficult residents.”

Nora paused the audio.

The apartment seemed to tilt around me.

“St. Agnes,” I whispered.

Nora’s mouth tightened. “That place was shut down twice under different names. Private facility. No visitors unless approved. Chemical restraints, mostly. Families pay to make problems quiet.”

My skin crawled.

“She was going to put me there.”

“No,” Nora said. “She was going to erase you there.”

A sound came from the laptop.

Another file had begun playing automatically.

This one was newer.

Caleb again.

But this time he was whispering in darkness.

“I found Dad’s original trust letter. Vivian doesn’t know about the witness clause. If Mom appears in person before probate closes tomorrow, alive and competent, everything Vivian filed collapses.”

His breathing hitched.

“But if Mom doesn’t appear…”

The video shook.

A door slammed somewhere near him.

His eyes darted offscreen.

“If Mom doesn’t appear by 9:30, the court will accept the death filing. Vivian gets temporary control of the estate, the farm, the buildings, everything. And after that…”

A woman’s voice called faintly in the background.

Caleb froze.

Then he leaned close to the camera.

“Mom, listen to me. The second message is not the death certificate. It’s the address hidden in Dad’s will. Nora knows. Dad left you an executioner clause.”

The screen went black.

I turned to Nora.

“What is an executioner clause?”

For the first time all night, Nora Bell smiled.

Not kindly.

Dangerously.

“It means Thomas knew someone might come for your legacy someday.”

She stood, walked to an old filing cabinet, and unlocked the bottom drawer.

Inside was a sealed envelope yellowed with age.

My name was written on it in my husband’s handwriting.

Nora placed it in my hands.

I tore it open.

Thomas’s letter was only two pages.

But by the time I finished reading, I was crying so hard I could barely see.

He had known.

Not Vivian specifically.

But greed.

He had seen enough families devoured by inheritance to build a final trap into our estate.

If anyone attempted to gain control of my assets through fraud, coercion, false incapacity, or forged death proceedings, all disputed property would freeze instantly and transfer oversight to an independent trust attorney.

But there was more.

The person who triggered the fraud clause would be disinherited permanently and referred for criminal prosecution.

Nora tapped the second page.

“There’s your weapon.”

I looked at the clock.

11:42 p.m.

“Court opens at nine,” Nora said. “Vivian’s funeral performance starts at ten. Probate filing at nine-thirty.”

A heavy knock sounded downstairs.

Then another.

Then glass shattered.

Nora turned off the lamp.

The room dropped into darkness.

From below, a man shouted, “Mrs. Bell! Open the door!”

Nora grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the back window.

Rain lashed the glass.

The fire escape outside trembled in the wind.

I clutched Thomas’s letter to my chest as footsteps thundered up the stairs.

And then my phone lit up with one final message from Caleb.

Mom, run. She knows where you are.

My Own Funeral

I spent the night in the basement of St. Mark’s Church.

Nora knew the pastor. The pastor knew when not to ask questions.

At dawn, he brought me coffee, dry socks, and a navy dress from the donation closet. It smelled faintly of lavender and dust. I changed in the women’s restroom, pinned my hair, and stared into a cracked mirror beneath buzzing fluorescent lights.

I looked tired.

I looked frightened.

But I did not look dead.

At 8:50 a.m., Nora and I walked into the county courthouse through the employee entrance.

The trust attorney arrived three minutes later.

His name was Julian Cross, and he had the calm expression of a man who had spent forty years watching rich people destroy themselves over signatures.

He read Thomas’s letter twice.

Then he looked at me.

“Mrs. Whitaker, I need to ask you several questions to establish capacity.”

“Ask.”

“What year is it?”

I answered.

“Who is the current president?”

I answered.

“What property do you own?”

I listed every parcel, every building, every account I could remember.

His face softened slightly.

“And do you understand that someone has filed a certificate claiming you are deceased?”

“I do.”

“And are you deceased?”

I looked him dead in the eye.

“Not today.”

Nora gave a small satisfied grunt.

At 9:24, we entered probate court.

Vivian was already there.

Black dress.

Pearl earrings.

A lace handkerchief pressed delicately beneath one eye.

Beside her sat Caleb, pale and rigid, his hands clasped so tightly the knuckles were white.

When he saw me, his face broke.

Just for a second.

Vivian saw his reaction before she saw me.

Then she turned.

The courtroom inhaled.

I will never forget her face.

Not shock.

Not grief.

Rage.

Pure, naked rage.

Then the mask dropped back into place.

She stood so quickly her chair scraped the floor.

“Margaret,” she breathed. “Thank God. We’ve been so worried. You’ve been confused. Caleb, tell them. Tell them she’s been confused.”

Caleb did not move.

The judge looked over her glasses.

“Mrs. Whitaker?”

I stepped forward.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Vivian’s hand tightened around her purse.

Nora leaned toward me and whispered, “Careful. Cornered snakes still bite.”

The hearing began.

Julian Cross presented Thomas’s letter.

Nora presented the forged documents.

I presented the voicemail.

The judge listened without expression.

Vivian cried.

Then cried harder.

Then claimed Caleb had manipulated her.

Then claimed I was senile.

Then claimed Nora had fabricated evidence.

Each lie grew more desperate than the last.

Finally, the judge turned to Caleb.

“Mr. Whitaker, do you have anything to say?”

The room went still.

Caleb stood slowly.

He looked at Vivian.

Then at me.

His eyes filled with tears.

“I gave my mother that rice,” he said. “I humiliated her in public. I did it because my wife was watching from across the street, and I needed Vivian to believe I had broken ties with her.”

Vivian whispered, “Caleb.”

He flinched but kept going.

“I found the forged death certificate. I found the St. Agnes admission forms. I found recordings of Vivian discussing how to transfer my mother’s property after probate accepted the filing.”

His voice cracked.

“And I was a coward. I should have gone to the police immediately. But Vivian threatened to destroy my mother, and I believed her because I watched her destroy other people.”

Julian Cross stood.

“Other people?”

Caleb reached into his jacket and removed a small black notebook.

Vivian lunged.

An officer stepped between them.

Caleb placed the notebook on the clerk’s desk.

“Names,” he said. “Accounts. Properties. Elderly clients from her charity foundation. My mother wasn’t the first.”

The courtroom erupted.

Vivian screamed then.

Not cried.

Not pleaded.

Screamed.

Her face twisted into something I had never seen before and somehow always suspected was there.

“You stupid little man,” she spat at Caleb. “You had everything because of me.”

Caleb looked at her, broken but finally clear.

“No,” he said quietly. “I almost lost everything because of you.”

The judge ordered Vivian detained pending investigation.

As the officer took her purse, something slipped from the side pocket and fell onto the courtroom floor.

A small plastic bottle.

Prescription sedatives.

My name was on the label.

But I had never seen them before.

Nora picked it up with a tissue and handed it to the officer.

Vivian went silent.

And in that silence, everyone understood what would have happened if I had stayed home the night before.

I would have been found confused.

Drugged.

Maybe unconscious.

Maybe worse.

And the woman in black would have cried beautifully over my coffin.

The Legacy Thomas Left Behind

Vivian did not go quietly.

People like her never do.

She hired attorneys with names that sounded like marble buildings. She claimed emotional distress, marital coercion, clerical errors, grief, confusion, conspiracy. When that failed, she turned on Caleb. When that failed, she turned on the doctors. When that failed, she stopped speaking altogether.

But paper had finally turned against her.

The forged death certificate.

The false medical reports.

The St. Agnes payment records.

The sedatives.

The notebook.

And Caleb’s recordings.

One by one, the lies became evidence.

Six months later, Vivian was indicted on fraud, elder abuse, identity theft, conspiracy, and attempted unlawful confinement. The investigation into her charity foundation uncovered four other families who had lost property after elderly relatives were declared incompetent under suspicious circumstances.

One woman had died in St. Agnes.

Her daughter sat beside me at the trial and held my hand through the verdict.

Guilty.

Not on every count.

Enough.

Vivian did not look at me when they read the sentence. She looked at Caleb. Hatred burns hottest toward the person who stops worshiping the illusion.

Caleb and I did not heal quickly.

Stories like this make people want clean endings.

A hug.

An apology.

A kitchen full of sunlight.

Life is not that generous.

For weeks, I could barely look at him without seeing the street. The rice. His cold face. The public shame burning through my bones.

He came to my house every Sunday anyway.

He fixed the broken fence.

Replaced the back door lock.

Installed cameras I still forget how to use.

Sometimes we sat at the kitchen table for an hour without speaking.

One afternoon, he brought another sack of rice.

He placed it gently by the pantry door.

Then he sat across from me and cried like he was ten years old again.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Not dramatically.

Not to be forgiven.

Just because the words had been trapped inside him too long.

I looked at my son.

Really looked.

He had tried to save me badly.

Clumsily.

Too late and yet just in time.

But he had tried.

I reached across the table and took his hand.

“I know,” I said.

It was not forgiveness.

Not fully.

But it was a door opening.

Thomas’s executioner clause did exactly what he intended. My property was protected. The farm remained mine. The rental buildings were placed in a trust that now funds legal aid for elderly residents facing conservatorship abuse.

Nora Bell sits on the board.

God help anyone who submits sloppy paperwork.

As for me, I still walk to Mason’s Market sometimes.

The street remembers.

People lower their voices when they see me. Some apologize for watching. Some say they knew something was wrong.

They did not.

But I let them say it.

Shame is easier for witnesses when they can turn it into wisdom afterward.

Last Tuesday, I passed the place where Caleb handed me the rice.

The afternoon was warm again.

The pavement smelled of dust and rain.

A young mother struggled with groceries while her little boy pulled at her sleeve, impatient and red-faced. For a moment, I saw myself decades earlier, carrying Caleb on one hip and two bags in the other hand, certain love would be enough to protect us from anything.

It isn’t.

Love needs truth.

It needs courage.

It needs witnesses who do more than stare.

When I got home, there was a note waiting under my door.

No envelope.

No name.

Just one sentence.

Vivian had help inside St. Agnes.

I stood in my hallway for a long time, the paper trembling between my fingers.

Then I folded it carefully, put on my coat, and called Nora.

Because some women survive their own funeral.

And then they start digging graves for the people who tried to bury them.