The ethics of proper mourning
On a fresh Saturday morning in a café there are
twelve couples eating breakfast. A man enters
the café with his son and orders a coffee
and a glass of chocolate milk. Meanwhile the
boy runs amuck: shrieking, flailing, limbs
akimbo. One by one the diners grit their teeth.
A woman frowns, sits straighter and visibly
tightens her buttocks.

At the peak of this irritation, when it can't
go on any longer—the dam is about to break,
the house of cards about to tumble, the wino
about to fall off his bench—the boy slips
and cracks his skull against the edge of a
table. Suddenly there is shrieking of a different
timbre. The boy's father, ashen, picks up his
son and carries the boy outside while the café
owner calls an ambulance. Meanwhile the diners
cycle through emotions: relief, guilt, concern,
relief.


Index