Daily story, September 25, 2025

She had laughed halfway through the funeral, and everyone was being very nice about it. Even the family. Especially them. Grief shows itself in all sorts of ways, they said, but it wasn’t grief. She hadn’t been thinking of Emily at all, had hardly thought of her once since she died. She was thinking of a video she had watched that morning, of a goat screaming like a human. She was still thinking of it at the wake, as they told her not to worry. When they were finished she crept off to the toilets to watch it again. She wouldn’t think of Emily again, now. When she wanted to, instead she would think of the goat, screaming.