SHORT STORIES

Cemetery Gates

The gates of the cemetery moan open, a cavernous mouth before me. This is my daily task, my itching compulsion. I enter, fingernails black with dirt, ten waxing gibbous moons.
The trees stand silent in the stillness. Watching. Their hidden eyes follow me, they've seen me before. In the daylight I walk these paths, friendly and acceptable, a shovel slung across my shoulder. I am the keeper of this land, but by night, my impulses are freed from their stalls like greyhounds gnashing at the lure.
The clicking, croaking crows flit about in the gloom, spitting insults at each other in an ancient tongue. Their eyes shine like silver pennies as they slide their gaze along my stride. Hopping after me, they adore this twilight ritual.

I come to an untouched grave, a half buried obelisk wrapped tightly in ivy.  Somehow it has escaped my attentions before now. I gobble the sight of it up, my heart thumping rabbity in its cage. I collapse upon it, face to the moss, I can feel its damp, spindly hands give way under my cheek. My nose slurps up the rainfall and the half rotten smell of toadstools and curled up woodlouse. Amongst this is the far away scent I seek tonight. That crumbling, burning pong, sandstone and satanic seed. It's hard to describe as the smell is not what I am dribbling for, it's what comes next. That faint whiff gives me a lurch of drive.
Scrabbling, scratching fingers penetrate the earth, the stinking soil flies up around me. Rummaging like the long-clawed badger, I split the earth apart.

At last the smell has become stronger and I have found its source. The grimy slab is caked with mud and I scrape it all away until the face of the memorial stone shines like the whites of eyes. I read the names, the dates and the epitaphs. Names that have not be called for a hundred years. Then the snaking scent of sleeping skeletons slithers through the soil like smouldering incense and the visions permeate my nose. With desperate sniff, the memories of the expired form in blue visions before me. I live their lives in quick succession as fast as a racing tune. Some ecstatic melody, thundered out by tumultuous tenants, feet banging out that tainted tune on tavern floors. I am twisted and turned, eyes tumbling and twitching, I do not see the trees towering around me, I do not see the gathering clouds. Some creature howls a guttural chorus and I am shaken from my trance as the intoxicating smoke ceases and sneaks up skyward. My exhale has expelled the last of it. My senses come back to me and my vibrating throat makes me aware that the creature calling was me. The quivering plants settle and the crows are laughing, the nights entertainment crescendoed with a cacophonous climax and their petrol wings rustle with avian applause.
So sweet was tonights treat that in the last wisps of this tremendous hit, I feel my body go slack as a punched jaw and my palms strike the earth. My full fingernails now ineffective, I paw into the dirt again, desperate for another, eager to live again.