Mr Tumble and the Garden of Descent

I was at a funeral once; a hot day so blistering I could feel my skin curling at the edges. The Wake was in a garden manicured like a posh ladies’ fingernail. The garden had a steep sloping nature; three tiers like a grassy amphitheatre with the odd sunburst of a dandelion puncturing the lush green. People were milling about, shuffling to the food buffet to anxiously snaffle a mini sausage and a Prosecco. One man, tall gangly in his early 70’s, black suit and tie, smart with rectangle glasses wedged on his bony beak of a nose, nice smile, went to take a bite of his wizened pork treat and misjudged the slope;  the garden, to him, must have simply shrunk back a bit. The shiny long black shoe twisted in the air for a split second and then his entire frame lunged sideways. He rolled like a child might roll down a hill to begin with, but it metamorphosed into a daddy-long-legs missing one if its famous long legs flailing out to gain purchase on something. The dandelions in the way of his tumbling traversing of the incline were like daisies under a steam roller. If it wasn’t such a shocking real life situation it might have been rather amusing, say if it were on TV or being told on a blog or something. As he tumbled I could hear the wind being knocked from his hollow bamboo frame with every full rotation. Finally he came to rest at the bottom of the garden , just at the edge of the borders; the cuticle of the posh ladies’ finger. A lazy bee bumbled idly past his scalp , probably wondering if the pink fleshy mound was a new part of the landscape it would have to make an extra effort to avoid in the future. There was a hush, some people started to rush towards the gent whose dignity seemed to have been stripped like bark from a very tall and skinny tree. Fearing a terrible moment might arrive when they got there some held hands to their mouths in shock. Suddenly a long bony  arm shot up in the air, clasping the glass of Proscecco and a booming actorish voice rung out around the garden, nay, the valley. “it’s alright, I’m fine”. This funeral suited Lazarus, this English streak of luck holding aloft his whizz popping nectar looking every bit like a laying down Statue of Liberty, hadn’t spilt a single drop of fizz. Although his sausage was well and truly crushed. “it’s such a heat today, I couldn’t afford to spill it” he chuckled with some added rasp and a cough. I took the steps.