Afterward,
by Sam Martone
there was a wedding every other day. All the weddings that had been delayed, yes, but weddings that had been scheduled for these days all along, those too. And the newly planned weddings, lovers forced close in a bubble at the beginning, their courtships fast-forwarded. And the slapdash weddings, couples who met after the vaccine rollout but feared another world-stopping catastrophe and rushed to plan, to ceremone and celebrate while they still could. It was impossible to plan around, to stake out a weekend that wouldn’t conflict, when everyone would be free, but we were all more willing to attend weekday weddings now. Winter weddings. Early morning weddings. Holiday weddings. It had been so long since we’d seen the ones we loved.
The receptions were raucous affairs, held at old barns or art museums or hotel ballrooms or family-owned bars or repurposed firehouses or car show floors or movie theaters or haunted houses or state fairs or abandoned warehouses decked out in modern décor. Seating charts were formulated for maximum chaos. Feuding nemeses, estranged family, secret lovers, ex-lovers, unrequited lovers all at the same tables, brought together in the name of celebrating the love they shared for two people—or sometimes more (those types of weddings being much more common afterward, when we could more readily identify the cages of loneliness we’d constructed for ourselves, the limitations and limitlessness of love). Every guest in attendance was granted a title: the Second Best Man, the Grandmother of Storms, the Uncle At-Large, the Bride’s Revenge. The Maid of Honorifics was in charge of doling out these designations. On the dance floor, everyone danced. Everyone sang. Everyone kissed. A mass in constant motion. A mob of living sound. A throng of scents, sweet and stale and sour, all that we could never sense in our former sterility. What had irritated or disgusted or scared us before, it was all so precious. Dozens of bouquets tossed. Dozens of garters slungshot around the room. Everyone booed when the DJ said last song. Everyone cheered when the DJ relented. Okay, okay. Just one more.
But the ceremonies, they were more solemn than ever before. We sat in silence. No music played as to-be-weds walked down the aisle. Officiants said nothing. Rings slid onto fingers to no reaction. No vows were exchanged, except by way of the eyes. Behind each mask, in all of our mouths, we’d stuffed slips of paper upon which we’d written the names of the dead, all those who couldn’t be here, but would’ve, they would’ve been here. Adam. Adeline. Kimberlee. James. JoAnn. Rebecca. Tyler. Wendell. For the duration of the ceremonies, we chewed the paper to mush. We chewed and we swallowed, the masticated mess of pulp and ink like a tube slid down our throats. The following day, there would be a funeral to go to. Every day there wasn’t a wedding, there was a funeral. Those, of course, had been delayed as well.
Sam Martone lives and writes in New York City.
