Out of a pickle

Susan placed the ashes back on the coffee table, I thought about the next few hours in a few seconds. The urn wasn't the urn we had picked out. Somewhere between silver casing with Tom's initials on the side and tinted gold someone had opted for an old pickle jar. We all saw the funny side - it was exactly what Tom likes to get himself into so why not put his ashes there.
As services go not one person shed a tear or looked unhappy. Tom always made people smile. Thinking about him would always take you to a happy place, to a situation that seemed so farfetched or unnecessary, trouble that he'd manage to get himself out of in the nick of time and anyone else involved.
We took this pickle jar with the last of our friend to his favourite spot, a couple of steps behind a Chinese restaurant in Soho. He often said when he needed to think there was no place better than a mixture of Chinese food and trash to really get you out of a funk and moving in the other direction. 

Susan watched as I opened the lid and tilted the jar into the wind. Margo, Phil, Mark, James and his two cousins Claire and Gemma stepped out of the way just as the first pieces of ash mingled in the breeze and avoided everything in their effort to float to the sky.

Tom was heading in a direction that only he knew the destination. Susan touch my shoulder as though she knew what I was thinking and continued to put an arm around me and rest her chin on my shoulder. We looked down at the empty jar and smiled.