Memories and Sentiments

They’d hovered on the edges of the cemetery, watching the priest spout his nonsense, the case workers and hired mourners do their bit. Casey had almost done his nut when he saw the Dragon lingering on the outskirts of the crowd, dressed in sombre black. What the hell right did he think he had, showing up to her funeral?

The message on her tombstone was pathetic, “Precious Daughter”, because she’d had no parents of which to speak. The newspaper had only garbled about what a good student she was and how unfortunate her childhood had been. Casey and Trick and the others exchanged glances, and they knew what they would do.

They managed to get halfway through Seal’s official obituary - cans of spray paint, a blank wall in Wan Chai - before the cops came, and then they ran, but they’d managed to say what they wanted to say.

Dearest Sister and Fists of Fury; chess and tea under the moonlight; That time at that place with those firecrackers; the Lion Dance on New Year’s. A smattering of memories and sentiments, epitaphs and slogans. Fought with the best, died like the rest.

When Casey and the others returned the next day, they saw that someone else had added to their work, a great red oriental dragon melting out of the smoke from a rising phoenix.