I've got nothing I really want to write about today, yet, I feel that writing something is a must. Since last I wrote, I've begun very, very slow work on a novel. I've got some good ideas and characters and about the first chapter written. It looks like it will be a treasure hunt/mystery type affair around Manhattan. Having spent the last 4+ years going out to see Marcy in the Fort Washington section of Manhattan, I have lots of available locations.
So far, I'm looking at including The Cloisters, Yeshiva University, Times Square, a bar down on 9th Street that we visited once, MoMA and one or two others that have yet to be identified just yet. Marcy is going to be helping me write it, so this will be a fun sort of project. Although, at the rate I'm actually getting any writing DONE, it may be ready sometime around the turn of the century. Well, maybe the decade. Soon. Soonish, at any rate.
The plans are to write it, then self publish. Probably with an attendant podcast of the book. Similar to how Mike Bennett and Scott Sigler do things. Still, first, I have to write the bloody thing. With that said, I am going to put my story "The Necropolis" here for you to read. It needs some editing, but not much. Feel free to comment.
- Reticent Blatherer
This story came to me along time ago and has been banging around in my head. If you drive up the Garden State Parkway, North, toward I280 (At the time of writing, between exit 143 and 145) you will come across a graveyard on both sides of that highway. It stretches almost as far as you can see. In New Jersey, of course, that isn't very far. I never found the place particularly dark, but it did inspire this.
The Necropolis
Andrew J. Rowland
Most people would balk at the idea of buying a house next to a cemetary. My wife and I, though, found theneighbors to be quiet and the scenery picturesque. It was a magnificent Victorian or Edwardian house next to thegraveyard. At one point, I suppose, the house had been part of the graveyard's sextant quarters. Perhaps the vicar of the nearby church had lived there. We had no idea, really. Alas, in the intervening years, the church had shrunk in congregants and, needing the money, the church had sold the house. Depending, instead on having a traveling vicar to tend the local flock.
Be that as it may, my wife and I were more than happy to purchase the house. Which had been empty for some time. As I said, most don't like to live so close to the constant reminder that all flesh is dust. One happy, Spring day, she and I put down the payment and happily signed away our lives to buy the two story house. With theMaster Bedroom Veranda that overlooked what we came to, jokingly, call "The Necropolis". The City of the Dead.
It was beautiful in Spring. Spring, with the fresh grass and aptly named forget-me-nots peeking up through the new melting snow. Which would cup the gravestones, old and new, in its snowy embrace, the ice dripping down thefacings of the stones. It was marvelous in Summer. Summer, with the smell of fresh cut grass, the deep green ofthe trees, and the fresh scent of daisies, roses and lillies of the relatives coming to pay their respect to their dead. Fall, of course, meant Halloween. We got no Trick or Treaters due to our proximity to The Necropolis, to my wife's dismay. Children and their parents do not understand,or want to understand,though. Winter brought the humped snow across the stones and then it began again.
We were happy, although we had no children. That blessing was denied us. In those days, there was no such thing as In Vitro or anything else. We merely went on. Cherishing each other and our life. We continued to be happy. Could we have adopted? I suppose so. It didn't occur to us, to be quite honest. To quote F. Scott Fitzgerald "So we beat on". Life went from year to year. We grew older as people are wont to do. Happy in our lives. Happy with each other.
I don't remember when I first noticed them, to be quite truthful. I do remember it was evening. I was sitting on theveranda outside the bedroom, enjoying a beer and a smoke when I noticed the woman. She was simply standing there. In the middle of The Necropolis. Looking south. I couldn't see her face, although her body was quite solid, as near as I could tell. I turned to call my wife, but by the time I turned back, the figure was gone. Feeling like a fool, I told my wife, never mind, I must have imagined it.
The next day, I saw the grave diggers. In the same general area as I saw the woman. The pair of them dug thegrave in the morning. In the afternoon, the funeral came. The diggers returned afterward and filled in the grave. A few weeks later, the stone went up. These things take time, after all. I watched it all from the veranda and pondered.
The years went on. I saw a few of these people. Just standing, looking some direction or another. The next day,the gravediggers would show. The funeral would happen. The grave would be filled. The stone would be put up. Life, and death, went on.
I had no warning when she went. I came home from work one day and the love of my life was lying in the middle ofthe kitchen floor, dead. Cold. I tried to revive her, but it was futile. I raged. I cried. Later, they told me that it was an aneurysm. Something in her head let go and took her away from me. Random chance. Uncaring gods. Uncaring sky.
I was, needless to say, devastated. Friends tried to console me and I let them. Companionship is good. Loss shared is loss lessened, or so they say. I never really found it to be like that. After some, respectful amount of time, they tried to pair me with others. I politely declined. My Aphrodite was gone. My goddess of Love. My Heart. How could you replace her with Lulu Belle from down the corner? The short answer was: You couldn't and you cannot. I was never rude, I was just uninterested. They never stopped trying, though, bless them.
I put her in The Necropolis, of course. Where else? A nice place, close to the house. She was laid out in her finest silk and satin. Her hair had greyed over the years, but her luster did not fade for me. I put her favorite red ribbon in her braided hair. Then, I closed the box over her face. Let the mortician lock it with that key he had andthe procession of her friends and mine laid her to rest where I could see her.
In the Spring, the snow melted around the stone. The summer, I made sure to plant daffodils on her site. Her favorite flower. I didn't bother with the other flowers, although I would sometimes bring callalillies. It was somewhat of a joke between us. Some god awful movie with Lucille Ball and some woman, famous I'm sure, who would talk about "The callalillies being in bloom." Nights, I would take a bottle of whiskey up to the veranda with me. Smoke and sip bourbon and talk to her as if she was still with me. Of course, she was, but people don't understand.
Over the intervening years, I would, of course, see the figures standing in The Necropolis. Facing this way, or that. The next day, the Diggers would show. The grave. The funeral. The stone. So we beat on. I would smile at theperson standing in the Necropolis, if they were faced my way. Raise a glass to them. Never got a response but I did it anyway. Then, I would stumble my way to our bed and sleep.
Then, one night, I sat on the veranda and saw her. Standing next to her spot. Her stone. Looking at me. Me. There was a smile on her lips, ghostly, of course. What else would it be? Her eyes were bright and I could almost see the hint of blue that I remembered when she was in our bed. Her braid was unraveled in my mind, perfect in thespirit. I raised my glass to her and she grinned at me.
I took a drag of the cigarette, drained from my glass and looked at her. She looked back. That smile. Gods, that smile. I finished the smoke. She looked devilishly at me. I laughed and went to bed.
