Grave thoughts

Grave Thoughts

There’s no such thing as Ghosts . . . all my life they’ve told me this, but with each step through these wrought iron gates, my conviction wavers. This is the cemetery in Monticello. It’s a tiny, timeless town and the dead who fill its graveyard are even older than the buildings that overshadow them. The gates are black as a midnight shadow, looming just overhead like row on row of spirit soldiers waiting to defend their charges. Hesitating steps lead into the unsettlingly cool shade, as the wind fills my lungs with the scent of decayed leaves and stiff cold.

There is a faint rustling in the hidden spots just beyond my vision and I snap to attention, arms pulled to my sides and fists balled. But it’s only the wind, and the tension leaks out of me like air from a sliced balloon. I can hear my own harsh breaths, whistling slightly. Heading towards the entrance, my feet tap the pavement in the near silence. My hand, of its own accord, reaches out to touch the icy metal, to push the ebony arms aside. A grating "creeeaak" invades the quiet and I wince, taken aback. Does no one oil this thing?

A step, followed by another, takes me into the maw of this silent monster, where only a breath of wind betrays its semblance of death. With a shiver, I wonder if those who rest here are as deceptive.

The pebbled path below my feet winds far into the darkness, beckoning to come and see, come and see. Oh, the lot is not so large that I could be lost–no, not at all–but who knows what unperceived horrors lurk in the ever darkening night. Overhead the sky is fading from a burnished coral to cobalt blue, a glowing satiny magenta where they meet. The sun is lost just below the treetops, and I find I have trouble readingthe stone-carved names. The wind wraps itself around my arms and I can feel the cold, smooth scales of the serpent, raising goose bumps.
Slinking along the path, great pentagons of white marble rise up on either side, bishops surrounded by small, worn-looking pawns. There is a feeling of suspension, as I peer down through the impending darkness to catch an inscription. Each of these obelisks is someone’s final mark on this earth, the last sign that Angela Erickson, artist of unparalleled talent, lived, loved, and one day died. Alabaster mourning gowns all around, fading into the night with every passing second. There is the chalky, arctic taste of stone in my mouth, carried on the wind past my lips.

Bending down to the level of this one marker, I brush its weathered surface with my fingertips, trying to make out the script. This is why we come to the bone yards– to prove to the dead that they have not been forgotten. Though the ever-darkening shadows inspire dread, and the deep scents of earth confuse the memory, we humans are powerless to The Unknown’s call.

"You are not forgotten" I murmur, a bit surprised at myself. At any other time, in the presence of any person, I would be mortified. But here, surrounded by the silent multitudes, the shadowed eternity, nothing matters. All things light and socially acceptable are rendered useless. The wordless whispers in one’s mind do not care, and the inky silhouettes encroaching one’s vision cannot tell. Their world is a chilled one, infused with the taste of coppery fear. The living’s presence here is a debt to the afterlife, repaid in kind.

By the living, the dead are resurected. By the dead, the living are made eternal.