7:15 PM – Marta's Speech
When the priest finished, Marta went up to the pulpit.
"I want to thank everyone for coming, and especially..." She looked for the group with her gaze. "...to Mark's friends from the bar. Please, stand up so everyone can see you."
The five stood up uncomfortably as the congregation applauded.
Marta wiped away a tear. "Mark loved you so much. Every Sunday he'd come home and tell me your stories. He told me about the day the architect argued for half an hour about whether dogs could look up. The day the journalist did a report on a giant pizza, and he recorded it to watch over and over. The day the funny one in suits tried to hit on a waitress and she threw a beer on him."
Barney blushed. "That was... a misunderstanding."
"And he told me about you two," Marta continued, looking at Marshall and Lily. "About how you reconciled after a breakup. He said your love reminded him of his own with me when we were young. Though not just the two of you."
Lily squeezed Marshall's hand.
"And of you, dear." Marta looked at Alyx. "He always talked to me about you. Your drawings. How you captured people's essence without them noticing. Once he brought me a drawing you made of him without knowing it. He kept it in his wallet, always carried it with him."
Alyx opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Marta took something from her pocket. It was a folded piece of paper, worn by time. She opened it and showed a small sketch: a bald man with a mustache, sitting at a bar stool, a beer in his hand and a calm smile on his face.
Alyx recognized her own stroke. It was from months ago, when she drew people at MacLaren's without thinking. She had drawn that man without knowing who he was. Without knowing he was watching her watching him.
"This... this is mine," Alyx whispered.
"I know. Mark found it on the bar floor one day. He could have thrown it away, but he kept it. He said it was the best gift he'd ever received."
Alyx felt her eyes sting.
8:00 PM – The Beginning of Desperation
The funeral ended. Or it should have ended. But then the wake began.
And Mark Thompson's wake, they quickly discovered, was the most crowded social event in Brooklyn.
"You'll stay a while, right?" asked Marta with those pleading eyes no one could refuse.
"Sure," said Ted with a forced smile. "Of course."
They sat on some uncomfortable folding chairs in a corner, convinced it would be half an hour, max.
At 8:30, Barney looked at his watch for the twentieth time.
"The Super Bowl has been on for two hours," he whispered. "Two hours. The halftime show is over. People are watching the third quarter."
"I know," said Ted.
"We could leave. Say we have an emergency," Barney suggested, already planning to find out the game's results.
"What emergency?" Ted asked skeptically.
"I don't know. Our house caught fire," Barney insisted.
"We all live in different places, Barney," said Robin.
"Okay, all our houses caught fire. At the same time. It's a fire epidemic," Barney suggested, convinced of his idea.
Lily shot him a look. "We're staying out of respect."
"But we didn't even know him," Barney continued.
"That doesn't matter anymore. Now we know him. We know he watched us, that he kept a drawing of Alyx, that we mattered to him. That means something."
Barney sighed. "Fine. But if anyone mentions football, I swear I'll scream."
8:47 PM – The Endless Stories
And then the stories began. One after another, endless, infinite. Until an elderly woman, in a black dress with an amethyst brooch, approached them.
"You're the ones from the bar?"
"Yes," they said in unison.
"Mark talked to me a lot about you. Especially about 'puppy eyes'." She pointed to Ted. "He said you had a way of talking that was very... how did he put it? 'Architectural.' Like every sentence was a building."
"Thanks," said Ted, unsure if it was a compliment.
"Once he told me you argued for half an hour about whether dogs could look up. He said it was the funniest thing he'd seen in years."
Marshall and Ted exchanged glances.
"Did that happen?" asked Lily.
"I don't remember," said Ted.
"Me neither."
"But Mark remembered."
The woman walked away. Barney sighed deeply.
"That's it. We're going to spend the night listening to anecdotes from our own lives that we don't even remember."
"It's like an episode of Black Mirror," said Alyx.
"What's Black Mirror?" asked Marshall.
"They haven't invented it yet. But it will exist, and it will be unsettling."
9:15 PM – The Childhood Friend
A bald man with a white beard approached with two beers.
"Want one? I brought them from outside. It's a shame funeral homes don't have them."
They accepted gratefully.
"I'm Richard," the man said. "Mark's best friend since we were six. We grew up together in Brooklyn."
"Nice to meet you," said Lily.
"Mark talked to me about you all the time. Especially about the dark-haired girl." He pointed to Alyx. "The one with the notebook. He said you were like a spy, but for emotions. That you saw things others didn't."
Alyx smiled weakly.
"Once he told me he saw you draw your friends while they were laughing, and the drawing was so good it looked like they might jump off the page. He said, 'That girl has a gift, Richard. A real gift.'"
"Thank you," Alyx whispered.
"You're welcome. Mark was a great guy. He would have loved to really know you—your names, your full stories. But he was shy. He preferred to observe."
"I wish we had known," said Ted. "I wish we had sat with him someday."
"He wished that too. But he never dared." Richard sighed. "Well, I have to go. My wife is waiting. Take care of that drawing, okay? It means a lot to Marta."
He walked away.
The group sat in silence.
9:47 PM – Barney's Collapse
Barney couldn't take it anymore.
"I need air," he said, getting up.
He went outside the funeral home and leaned against the wall, breathing deeply. The street was quiet.
Inside the funeral home, he could hear laughter. More stories. More anecdotes.
He took out his Blackberry. Ted had given it back to him when they left, trusting his word that he wouldn't look.
Thirteen missed calls from his bookie.
Thirteen.
His finger trembled over the screen. One call. Just one, to know, to stop suffering.
The image of Alyx appeared in his mind. Her expression when Marta showed the drawing. Her bright eyes.
"Damn," he murmured.
He put the Blackberry away and went back inside.
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