The Cabaret of Public Grief

When a man blames a woman half his age for ruining his life and that man is now dead, she enters the  rite of passage known as appeasing his outstanding male friends. She begins by covering her head in  sackcloth, leaving the rest exposed (the body that first ensnared him from underneath her clothes).  She appears in darkness at the back of the room, like Lazarus, pallid, being summoned from the tomb.  As she worms her way through the audience, the men are encouraged to reach into the bowls of ash  at their tables and dress her with their hands. Next she takes the stage to perform the mirror test. This  requires a few volunteers who would like to surround her while holding up a two-way mirror. It is  undeniable: She is covered in marks from hands not belonging to him, more than enough to recognize  what she is. (What else could have made him do what he did.) The volunteers are instructed to close  in until the mirrors touch, encircling her like a cage. (Man still has to teach his best friend to sit and  stay.) She trusts the men are still watching while she bleats guttural renditions of “I Should Have  Known,” “Never Say No,” “I’ll Love You Forever (Now That You’re Gone)” and “When He Haunts  Me.” In the final act she gets on her knees and plunges her fingers down her throat, exorcizing herself  first of everything she has ever tasted or carnally known, then hunger, then memory. The men applaud  with heart and she discovers, when the lights are turned off, the horrors of mirror gazing in the dark. Seeing specters foaming at the mouth, it is unclear who is growling and who is whimpering, and when  one lunges forward they all lunge forward, splintering each face until each face disappears. Collapsed,  she whispers You may take a shard as a souvenir but the men have already gone home, feeling so absolved  and alive they are compelled to stand over the bed and jerk off next to their sleeping wives.