He had lived around 87 years, or 86 years before he hung himself from a tree branch. He was not exactly good at remembering his age or keeping important documents. He had two state ID's, the California one was voided, but both listed different dates of birth. The one from Washington said he would have been 87, but the California one made it out to be 86.

Even though that was essentually the content of the eulogy, the eulogy still lasted around twenty minutes. It mostly consisted of poor jokes since we actully did not know a lot about him. He had one child, my mother, who hardly talked with him since she left the house when she was 18 due to how he blamed her for his wife's death during child birth. The only thing that remained of my grandmother was the doll. Her childhood doll that was made with actual human hair. Dad wanted to have the doll buried with grandpa, but grandpa's will required that we keep it in our house if we wanted any of his money.

Since there were not a lot of pictures of grandpa, the remembering tables, the tables where most funerals have a ton of pictures involving the dead person, mostly consisted of stuff connected to the doll in some way. Nearly all of the pictures had the doll in it, and most of both grandma's and grandpa's journal's mentioned him.

One passage, from grandpa's journal, said, "I went to an old antiques dealer to see what I could for Iskariott, but the dealer only offered me $30. I obvously decided against it. Mary held Iskariott so dear that it would be criminal to part with him."

Other parts of the journals mentioned other interesting tadbits of Iskariott. Apparently he bears the name and hair of an ancient ancestor, though the name's spelling has changed over the years. Many male members of the family often died very similarly to the doll's name sake. A doll collector once told Mary that the make of the doll appeared very similar to that of older roman dolls and offered to pay $30,000 for it. While it seemed they could have used the money, again they refused. Even through it also appeared that grandpa did not like the doll.

After the buriel, everything was cleaned up and the stuff on the remembering tables was boxed up and placed in the living room downstairs. Supper was short and sad, odd since we hardly knew the guy, and afterwards we watched a short documentry about Trypanosoma cruzi and Triatomine, my dad studied bugs, before all heading off to bed. After taking my sleeping pills, I set my stuff on grandpa's rocking chair to the left of my yellow sheeted bed, we had run out of space down stairs for it, before putting headphones on to listen to Black Sabbeth and Apocalyptica as I faded out looking at my reflection in the mirror across the room.

I knew I was asleep, but it did not help much. The dry grass was yellow and cracked under my weight as I walked over to the lone tree. Hanging from the tree was a man in old looking clothing, something out of the bible videos we sometimes watched during sunday school. While I could not feel any wind, the dead man swayed back and forth with the tree branch creaking all the time like old wood flooring. The smell was like a full porta potty that had been left for weeks without any cleaning. Using my shirt to cover my mouth and nose, I crept closer. When I was about about six feet way, the corpse stirred. It raised its left hand and grapped the noose around its neck and raised its face to look at me. Shocked I only watched as the corpse seemed to stretch its mouth and gasp for air as it looked at me. There was no rot, except for the black bugs crawling all over, it looked as if the man was only just put there a few moments before. It then coughed three times, the third cough sending a black pile of bug and phlegm to area in front of my feet. Then it screamed. "Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!" After the third word, the rope broke and the corpse splattered to the ground. Rooted to the spot, I watched as his bloody guts went everyway. Then the black bugs crawled out of the corpse. To me. Unable to move, I could only watch and feel as the bugs appoached me and started climbing on me. Paralyzed, I could feel them climbing up my legs, my back, my neck. It was only when I got a painful bite to my left cheek, that I woke up screaming.

Gasping, I bolted up right in bed, my head phones flying off my head. Instinctively, I slapped my cheek. There was a sharp pain when my hand landed and I yelped. Withdrawing my hand, there was a crushed bug in my hand with a mix of its and my own blood on it. Quickly checking, I found that it was the only bug on me. Sighing with relief, but still breathing heavily, I studied the dead bug in my hand. It was difficult to tell, but it was the same bug that was in my dream. Triatomine. Somewhat relieved the episode was over, I dumped the buggy mess on my night stand to the right of my bed, to show my dad in the morning, before reaching for my head phones that were by my feet, using the moonlight from the window to see. It was when I grabbed the headphones that the smell hit me. The corpse smell. The suprise of the smell made me gag. Then I heard the creaking. To my left. Not wanting to look to my left, I instead turned my head to look at the mirror across the room lite by the moonlight. In the reflection, on the creaking rocking chair, was the doll staring at me. Its eyes glowing.

They say birds of a feather flock together. But as I meander through every nook and cranny of life, I've began to realize that it's a lie. The majority of us craft a persona we like and continue our silly little stride. We all mosey along the bumps upon the road with the same blue smile. Then we all say hi as our goofy grins mask how we truly feel inside.

"How are you today?" we all ask. Our voices are pitifully strained.

Chances are that you'll either deadpan or respond with a squeaky "Great!"

If you're the former, your mask has probably cracked or is somewhat transparent compared to the rest of ours. And that's okay! There's always an outlier in each and every case. It's the funny work of fate.

However, I implore you to beware of your honesty lest you fall prey to foes. Vulnerability is such captivating bait to surreptitious schemers.

Allow me to tell you a delightful story about a rather vicious snake. It managed to escape such a cleverly constructed trap and lived to tell the tale!

-|-

When you picture a fool, what comes to mind? Do you see an outspoken idiot who always believes that they're right? Or do you see a flailing comedian whose jokes always fall flat? Perhaps you see a certain wallflower enshrouded in mystery.

As for me, I see none of these! I firmly believe the biggest jesters in life are those who are kindhearted but naive. Yet, they display it for the whole world to see. What a catastrophe!

I knew of such a girl. Let's call her Ophelia, shall we? I'm not particularly good with pseudonyms but it'll have to make do.

She was a complete, utterly stupid fool!

-|-

Poor, poor Ophelia had chosen the wrong person to confide in. She was at the point in life where the only thing that ruled her routine was rapidly waxing stress. So when a seemingly sweet boy had asked her how she was doing, she broke down and told him all about her distress.

The hapless boy did not get a clue. He brushed past her plethora of woes and simply told her "I have something to tell you!"

His next words were something she had ached to hear from anybody else. But it was rushed and laced with intentions that were insincere.

"I love you."

He did not offer her any solace nor did he acknowledge her struggles. There was one thing he sought and one thing only. Superficial company and pretty arm candy.

She had never shut somebody down so fast. Those words were brute and crass.

Ophelia simply went back to sobbing about her unbearable stress.

-|-

Did he like her? Well, in a sense. A shallow, silly type of sense. Her altruism and trusting nature was painfully clear to see. She was quiet and spoke to almost nobody else. Ophelia was a pretty girl that would be easy to keep to himself!

Unfortunately for our tactless boy, he had failed to acknowledge any other facet of her personality. But he'd eventually find out the rest.

-|-

It's not as bad as I've made it seem. Ophelia did one thing and one thing only. She hurled sharp edged words brimming with brutal, piercing honesty. But she did it gradually and ever so slowly. It was so subtle that the boy was sure that he was surely going mad.

Whenever he showed any hint of affection, Ophelia bit back with a laugh. She'd accuse him of having no boundaries and everyone else would follow suit. Though they wouldn't say anything, they'd glare and sneer at him too.

She'd try to reenact his confession just for the heck of it. Whenever he'd complain about his day, she would proceed to simply say "Okay." and tell him to find a date.

Ophelia eventually got tired of being in his presence one day. But her vengeance wasn't complete. She still wanted her cake!

So she sauntered around the campus and strung a series of faithful friends to follow along. Her adorable little phalanx of guys that were loyal and strong. And she made damn well sure to always walk past the boy who did her wrong.

-|-

Her mask was finally being to solidify and the boy was questioning how long his could possibly last.

It didn't last long. He lashed out in agony but his cries were drowned by her bitter, angry siren song.

When he looked in the mirror, he could no longer distinguish his mask from his face. Which side was the reverse of the coin and which was the obverse? It puzzled him to no end. For all he could see in his cracked reflection was a crimson colored clown whose face paint was rapidly crumbling down.

Tears upon tears began to flow and all were bright red from the gaudy eyeshadow. Red was it avatar and red was the seal. Even the cunning playboy could no longer tell what was real.

The next day, his plight was displayed on the news for all to see.

-|-

Ophelia beamed from ear to ear. Her doe eyes and soft spoken demeanor painted her as an overly trusting fool. But now it was quite clear to me that she would not hesitate to gouge my eyes out.

An eye for an eye and we all go blind. But some people didn't even need their sight.

That snake was quite wry and was bound suck anybody's psyche dry.

I've entered toy store 'Dolls', and that's the last thing I remember while regaining my consciousness. In vague distance Dolly Parton's song 'Dumb Blonde' from her first ever album 'Hello, I'm Dolly'... Go figure... I'm on the operating table and The Biggest Clown of them all is putting rainbow polka dot surgical gl...