deadnut

rewrite/trip

I couldn't make it to the funeral and I wanted to say my
good-byes.

It was the first time I had been outside since I had died.
Months of nightmares and Demerol dulled my senses.
I saw the world in black and white and wondered if I
would ever see it in color again.

It was raining softly. The gentle kind of rain
that I used to love to lay in,
in vain attempts to cleanse myself of guilt. This time it
was different. My nerves were fried and every drop
of rain felt like a burning hot pinprick. I could not
stand it but soon found myself seduced by the pain.
If nothing else it meant I was alive.

It seemed to take an eternity to walk to the site. Dull,
gray, eroding monuments standing like sentinels lined
the path. Two centuries of death there to remind you
of your own mortality. Huge old oak trees towered above
like giants about to sweep time away. Not being in any
hurry to get there I took my time.

There was no gravestone, no marker, except for a rectangular
patch of grass and a bouquet of dead flowers, nothing marked
the spot. It was like he never existed. It started to rain harder.
My tears fell with it, keeping perfect time to the cadence of the rain.

As the rain poured down I beat the ground and cursed his
very memory. How dare he? How dare he leave and not take me with.
How dare he?

copyright 2001linke