It's been awhile since I've done a eulogy blog. Needless to say, don't ask me to do a eulogy or a wedding speech. It'll probably end up like this.
“Thank you, Reverend Warbeck, for that kind introduction.
Dear friends. Thank you all for coming out on this day for such a sad occasion.
We mark the passing of a dear husband, father, son, brother, and friend. We
mourn today for Charles. I was asked by Gwen to do the eulogy, given that I
knew him even longer than she had. Gwen, I’ll try to do my best.
When we think of people dying, of funerals, of sad
occasions, we think of people who have lived a long, productive life and who
have died peacefully in their sleep. Like my dear grandfather George. He went
in his sleep, not screaming in terror as I imagine the passengers in his car
must have been doing.
We don’t think of those who have died in the prime of life.
Forty two? You’ve still got so much living left to be
done.
And yet Charles left this world at the age of forty two.
It all makes you think of the fact- we’re all mortal, after
all.
Some of you have memories of the first time you met Charles.
The first time I met him was back in our Oxford days. We were both studying the
law. Ended up in some of the same law classes, including one particularly
boring one taught by Professor Entwick on tort law. Let me tell you this, if
it’s possible to bore someone to death, Old Man Entwick could have done
it. I swear, tort law is dull as you can imagine to begin with, but listening
to his lectures was more boring than watching paint dry... oh, hello there,
Professor Entwick. I hadn’t realized you were still among the living.
Well, Charles and I managed to muddle through all that, and
somehow passed that course. By the way, Professor, I don’t imagine you can
retroactively fail me after twenty years for that whole boring remark? No?
Good.
We became friends. Got on well together. Chased girls, went
drinking on the weekends, played rugby, somehow got through and got our
degrees. He went off to London. Me, being a proud Scot... I went to Edinburgh.
We got ourselves established in the law, set up practices, built up our own
reputations, stayed in touch. You know, I somehow wonder... if I’d gone to
London too, well, aside from the whole would
I have met my wife conundrum... oh, don’t worry, dear, it’s a hypothetical,
and I’m sure you and I would have met anyway.
That’s beside the point. What I wonder, given what
happened... might I have died too?
We’ve all seen the news stories that came out. The death
tolls. The horror and destruction that was brought across London. Those of us
who were safely out of the path of damage, we looked on in horror and disbelief
at what was happening. We thought of those we knew in London, hoped they were
safe, among all that.
Well, for one dear friend to all of us, he wasn’t safe.
Charles didn’t get home that night.
Instead he ended up crushed in his BMW by the foot of what
can pretty much be called a giant dinosaur.
Who’d have seen it coming? I mean, we all knew he was out there, of course, somewhere in the vastness of
the oceans, but usually he attacks places like Tokyo, or New York, or maybe the
American west coast. Usually he picks fights with giant monsters somewhere
else. But not in Britain. Not in London.
Why did Godzilla have to come here?
And more to the point, why did he have to stomp Charles and
his BMW into a fine paste?
And as an aside, how much of what’s in that coffin before us
contains bits of the BMW?
Well, we all saw the news stories. There were strange
reports in the North Sea of freighters being attacked by something big in the
water. Or some things, as it turned
out. And then, before we knew it, they were crashing out of the ocean and into
the Thames. That gigantic lizard we all know and fear, of course. Godzilla. He
was there. And flying through the air attacking him? Rodan. And Mothra. And
King Ghidorah. Which reminds me... who names
these things?
So there they all were, fighting their way up the Thames.
The government’s sending in the military, calling for help. Hundreds of
thousands of people evacuating. London in a panic. Somehow King Kong got
involved. I mean, I thought that big ape lived on the other side of the planet. How did he get off Skull Island?
You know, if Charles had been just a few minutes faster
getting out of the office, none of this might have happened. I’m not talking
about the death toll in the thousands... I mean, one lawyer leaving his office
a bit quicker wouldn’t have prevented the large scale destruction we’ve seen
thanks to five oversized monsters kicking the crap out of each other. I’m
sorry, Reverend Warbeck, I shouldn’t have said crap, not in a church. To be
more precise, kicking the hell out of each other. Was that the wrong word too?
If he’d only turned right instead of left, perhaps he’d have
avoided his fate. Perhaps he’d be home right now with Gwen and the children, or
we’d all be attending another funeral. I hear that Alister Hodges is having his
funeral as we speak, but hey, we all know Alister, and I can say with
confidence that none of us will miss him, am I right?
No, instead there he was, amid all the destruction, trying
to drive away among the chaos. The oversized beasts were busy destroying the
Shard, and to be perfectly honest, none of us are really going to miss that architectural abomination, are we?
At least they left some of the real landmarks alone. Though
unfortunately London Bridge really did fall down.
That’s not really the point. Sorry, I tend to get
sidetracked, particularly when ministers are starting to look impatient and
annoyed with me. Sorry, Reverend, won’t happen again, I promise.
Anyway, there was Charles, driving through traffic gridlock.
I can’t imagine what he was thinking in that last moment of his life. Maybe he
was glancing in the rear view mirror looking at all the carnage and destruction
behind him. Maybe he was cursing himself for not leaving sooner. Maybe he was
wondering what that giant shadow was that seemed to be descending all around
him in the last two seconds of his life.
Well, we know from the footprint left behind that it was
Godzilla that stomped Charles, his car, that bus, and the three orphans into
strawberry jam. I shouldn’t have used that visual. Sorry. I don’t usually get
asked to do eulogies. And after this, I probably never will be asked again.
At least it was quick. Charles didn’t suffer. Unlike that
poor bastard who was just caught at the edge of the whole thing and ended up
having his legs crushed into paper sized width. I imagine the rest of his life
will be pure agony.
Needless to say, there’s been a lot of heartache. A lot of
grief. A lot of terror. But we will carry on. We’re British. It’s like the
signs say: keep calm and carry on. Fortunately for all of us, those monsters
are gone, and they’re not coming back.
It’s a good thing the government brought in some outside
help. They summoned the only person
on the planet Godzilla was scared of.
They called in Lars Ulrich.
It turned out that the world’s grouchiest lawman was on vacation
in Ireland, and the government called for help. One parachute drop into the
city later, he was kicking monster ass all around, making every single one of
them cry. Particularly after Rodan asked why the drummer from Metallica had
parachuted into their fight.
Well, that’s all fine and good. The monsters got throttled,
beaten up, and bloodied. They all beat hasty retreats back into the ocean. The
grouchy Mountie went back to his vacation after knocking out Piers Morgan, and all Piers did was ask where the rest of Metallica was. But the damage is left behind. Our
dear friend Charles is gone, and he’s not coming back. All we can do is mourn for
him.
And we must wonder if, by chance, some bit of those three
orphans or those bus passengers or that poor bastard's legs are currently lingering in that coffin with
what’s left of Charles.”
