He knew that shame must still exist since he’d felt it deeply the night his father died: it washed over him in waves of self-contempt with each inexplicable and inappropriate spasm of insuppressible laughter which finally stopped when he saw his father’s soul fall away from his motionless form and then drift lazily across the room and then up, where it lingered for a time as if saying goodbye, only to fade slowly into the knotty pine ceiling directly overhead.
