STARTER FOR: Anyone ... Open / @omertastarter LOCATION: The Bianchi Estate. DATE AND TIME: December 11th, 2020. 3:00PM.
Being here now, in the wake of death, was a pillar of insurmountable grief. Deran stirs in the sentiment of everything, the sorrowful faces and black clothing, all patrons clad in large coats to hide from the cold of an early-December New York. The service was nice enough, a somber affair. Deran stood to the side and watched with a gentle stare, seated with his cousins. He fixated on a chipped tile on the floor halfway through. To his right, his father mentions Christmas.
Once back at the Bianchi estate, he wanders. He plucks up prepared foods from small tables and pops them into his mouth, though his appetite was fleeting. With so many people inside, with so much security, the place looks brand new. When he was young, he used to picture large balls happening here, ones where women paint their cheeks red and lift their breasts to their neck. 100 years of familial activity was enough to earn in his overflowing imagination to go rogue as a child. Now, it’s all just a little bleak.
He reaches for a photo from the mantle in the common area, one of Gregory and Deran’s father, Colin. They look formal, neckties and dress shoes. Their faces were baron of any smiles or teeth. Deran thinks he may turn to concrete if he looks long enough at their stern, steady eyes, focused on the camera, hands clasped together in front of their bodies. It’s then he realizes that someone was just a few feet from him, no doubt taking a few laps as well. “Photographs are weird,” Deran says, breaking the silence that brews between him and the other, “It’s strange to think something can be immortalized like that.”
