An Ancient Graveyard
Where once I stood as a child, now in dreams I stand as a man. The stones are memories of what they once were. The oldest and once grandest are now small boulders. Out of the echoing past runs a boy, his hands damp and clammy, laughing and leaping over ancient graves. They buried smallpox victims here, far from the town cemetery at the center of town. The graves, still legible, read only names and death dates. They are rushed things, some have no words at all. I stop, giving pause for the nameless dead whose bodies I surely trod upon, deep beneath my heels. I hear noises behind me and turn, startled by the sound. Two giant men stand looming, backs to me, sorting through a pile of cattle remains. They are sorting out the heads, which have had the skin stripped from them, leaving their eyes wide and sightless. One man, stooped and ancient, chuckles to himself and lifts from the pile at his size 19 feet the head of a man. Skinned. The eyes frozen in terror. I stumble backwards in similar horror, the ground gives way, and I fall into a grave. I sit up in bed and turn to my wife, who is speechless, staring in wordless horror at something behind me. Turning now, the same two men are staring at us, leering. The larger of the two reaches out for us with nothing in his eyes. No contempt. No anger. We are cattle. He is the butcher. The child reappears, laughing and running through my bedroom, leaping onto the nightstand and out the window, but not before handing me a string. It is brown and somewhat damp. The string carries the smell of musty sisal and deep earthy mud. It winds out the doorway, wrapping itself around the feet of the monsters, and I, without thinking, tie it into a bow.
I wake up alone in the woods, leaning up against the stones. No men are there, I am dappled by autumn afternoon sun. The wind is in the air and the air smells of leaves, of smoke, and the ancient scent of stone dust. I am alone. There is no one here but me. In my hand, my boot laces are tied into a perfect bow.
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