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Sometimes Tommy thought about what he would want his funeral to be like.
It was a morbid thought, not exactly something past-him would ever thought of, but past-him was dead and buried in the ground, his death mourned by people who barely even knew him. They made statues and planted flowers for him. They made memorials and graves for him.
Tommy remembered hating it. All these people, who never showed that they ever saw him as more than a nuisance, dared to mourn him. They dared to put on airs and pretend they ever cared.
I think people like me better when I’m dead, he once told Puffy.
She tried to rebuff him, of course. She was a therapist and a friend, after all. But in Tommy’s mind, it made perfect sense. People tend to view someone better when they didn’t have to be constantly reminded of why they dislike them.
He himself had done that with… so many people, some not even dead. It was so easy to miss someone who was not there, even if they had hurt him.
When Tommy was dead, he wasn’t there to be a pain for everyone. They were free to focus on the good things about him, no matter how miniscule.
He didn’t think he had that many good qualities. Not nearly enough to justify such rose-tinted views, anyway. His entire life, Tommyinnit had been defined by how annoying he was to other people. He would hate it if all those people who disliked him during his lifetime suddenly switched gears to liking him.
If he were to drop dead right this instant, they would probably do that again, though. Tubbo certainly would. He would make Tommy a grave and visit it often.
Tommy didn’t think he’d want that.
Wilbur once told him that he wanted to be buried in a forest. Let his body return to the earth. At the time, Tommy was 12 and stupidly idealistic. He remembered making a face to that idea, to which Wilbur responded by laughing and telling him, “you’ll understand when you’re older.”
Tommy understood, now.
When he died, he didn’t want grand graves, coffins, and headstones. No, he’d prefer to have his body taken away into a forest or a clearing. Laid in earth covered in nothing but the clothes he died in. And when they buried him, he didn’t want them to mark it with anything grand. He’d prefer if they merely put a wooden plank to mark his grave, or maybe he’d prefer if they didn’t. Let his burial spot blend with the nature around it.
And after years, decades, centuries passed on by, his body would truly return to earth. He would provide nutrients for the plants living there. And those plants would be eaten by animals, who would then be eaten by humans, and Tommy would’ve finally, finally given back enough to the world to justify his horrible existence.
And as for the people in his life? Let them forget he ever existed. Let them forget he was ever a part of their lives. Let them forget every memory they made together, the good and the bad. Tommyinnit would disappear from their lives and their memories, and with it all the pains he had caused him.
He’d live on in some ways, in the church, the bench, the discs. The small gifts he gave them. And as long as he stayed dead, those items would never hurt a soul.
That’s about the most he deserved, he thought. He didn’t deserve being memorialized for generations to come. He didn’t deserve to be remembered. But if the small things he left behind could help others, well…
He’d take living on in that way.