Ruined Cake

 

To me a wedding is not necessarily much of a celebration but there is a particular wedding that has always been in my mind that I feel the need to share.

It was the middle of autumn but the big willow tree outside the window had yet to shed the last few leaves. Inside, the room was absolutely freezing, as if someone had accidentally left the air conditioner for too long. I can see the groom, at the end of the aisle, shaking with nervousness and the chill his thin tuxedo failed to deny. I can see the bride, clad in a lacy white dress drifting down .She was an obese creature with a particularly hideous mole planted on her cheek. If uncle Morrie is to marry this woman, the marriage will be tortuous to watch. Somehow I had this notion that somehow her father is rich and her bulbous stomach was a living legacy of her spoilt and obnoxious behaviour. After the father, quite aged in the hands but quite young in the face, let go of her daughter’s hands and let her stand with the soon-to-be husband, the priest began. He was quite young, with an air of inexperience mixed with laziness. After a while, at the time when the couple is about to say their vows, the hall sudden rang with a metallic techno tune. Uncle Morrie took out his hand phone; quite embarrassed of disrupting his own wedding. “Yes…hello” he said but from his forehead one can read “Oh man it can’t be, why it has to be this time”. For about thirty seconds the tension seemed to be rising in the crowd to what is about to happen next. Sensing the danger, the soon to be Mrs. Humber seized the phone and through some sort of thing engaged the loud speak. The voice is that of a woman, very young from the voice and she said “Morrie dear, can you hear me I think the line is breaking up” and quite conveniently she added “This is Lucy, that lady that you took for dinner, the line is breaking up, goodbye my love”. There was a silence, emptiness ringed the hallway. Suddenly, the bride, once, hard punched Uncle in the face, so powerful it was that he felled. In retaliation uncle Morrie lifted himself up and he kicked his bride in the area between her legs. Somehow she flinched and as uncle stormed out of the chapel; his bride no-more lifted her self up and shouted obscenities. Surprisingly, despite the drama in front of them the audience didn’t seemed to want to intervene, indeed, in fact the audience seemed to enjoy watching this and wanted to savour every second to what is the pantomime in the middle of a boring wedding.

It was about ten minutes and the same scene was still there. People are so slow at times like this. The only person left of the couple is still standing, quietly crying to comfort herself. The audience, still taken aback by what happen is still sitting, wondering about many things but especially of what to do now that the groom had excused himself. To break the silence the priest, standing proud said to the bride but as an address to the whole chapel: “Thank god I’m not a real priest, ’cause I’m single and I have to say, you look hot in that dress.” Outside, the last leaves on the willow tree finally dropped.

 

Kallen Martin White

 

Garden International School