Lemon Tsupryk Q3 #2: Graveyard
Fog.
It creeps slowly, like the ghost of a wildcat treading softly through the tall grass, illuminated by moonlight. Its tendrils tempt, beckoning you towards a stagnant sanctuary among old rock and young grass. Don’t you want peace?
Yes, you do, but not like this.
If you choose to step through the rusted gate anyway, you will hear it creak shut behind you. Its groaning screech gets swallowed by the emptiness and after that, the air is still. Nothing quivers. Now you are keenly aware of the crawling things squirming below the wet dirt, twisting and squelching, digesting the dead in the dark.
On the surface where you stand (for now) it is green and grey and brown, splotches of moss lay scattered on stone pillars rising out of the ground. The words on some of them have been obscured by mold and mildew for years now though others are freshly carved; some names remembered but most forgotten, not out of malice but simply due to the apathetic erosion of time.
Will you also be forgotten?
Yes.
Will you be alone in your forgottenness?
No.
Maybe that serves as comfort.
A lone owl calls twice, but the humidity in the air seems to form a barrier that muffles the sound. You still flinch. It is out there, living, but you are in here. Are you dead? You might as well be, shut out of the world as you are.
And yet there is safety in the stillness. Just a day of rest among these stones wouldn’t hurt, would it? Just a day.
You advance further into the dead garden, slipping effortlessly into the heavy clouds smelling of life and death and moisture. A chair stands at the heart of this place and you see it now, it stands performing the same duty as a statue or fountain would in a town square. The difference is that it lacks any glamour—a crumbling, rotten, wooden thing, extraneous among pillars of immovable stone.
It looks like the most comfortable resting place in the world. At least now, at least to you.
Be careful.
If and when you settle, you will become a part of it. All of it. The moss. The fog. The squirming things. The dead things. One by one, corpses will rise from their graves and stand before you, swaying, mumbling; they wear the faces of those you love and speak hollow things. Not to worry, you have already mourned them. All of them.
Or so you think.
Maybe the fog will part just right, just for a moment, and you will glimpse the moon. Maybe you will notice a drop of dew drip off a blade of grass at your feet. Death wraps its skeleton hands around your ankles but life still whispers, sweetly. And, maybe if you’re lucky, strong hands of flesh and blood and patience will pull you up and out of your grave. But, most likely, you aren’t lucky.
So you have to do it yourself.
Awaken your stiff muscles and shake off the moss that clings to your skin. Get up. Stop mourning those who aren’t dead—not yet. That includes yourself. Remember, you are living! Run through the grass, the fog, the silence, as long as your legs can still carry you and your lungs can still breathe! You are a falling tree in the forest and you may be loud, but someone must be there to hear you.
Give up this isolation. Leave the chair behind.
Do not stare into death’s eyes until it claims you.
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| As we have the power to dig our own grave, so too we have the power to climb out of it. Image drawn by me. |
Lemon, I've always been a sucker for cinematic storytelling, and I believe you captured that perfectly. Your form of writing was incredibly enthralling. I kept scrolling frantically as I was trying to figure out what exactly you were alluding to within your story. If I've deciphered it correctly, I believe your blog is a metaphor for being your truest and loudest self, and if it's incorrect, well, I can fall back on the safety cushion that it's my take on your blog. I find your imagery so tactile, the fog on skin, the rot in the air, it has a juxtaposing effect in my opinion. It's slightly repulsive and gruesome, but BECAUSE it is repulsive and gruesome, its intruiging, if that makes sense. Humans are drawn to nasty situations, something I think you leveraged nicely. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Lemon! I cannot tell you how much I genuinely enjoyed this blog. I LOVE this type of descriptive writing as a reflection of something broader, and I think you perfectly captured the feelings of being trapped in a “safe” place where you are free to be distant and stay that way, even if that place is unsettling to some extent. I use quotation marks around the word safe because as you briefly mention at the end, being trapped in your own grave and mourning yourself does not serve anyone, least of all yourself. Isolation can be incredibly tempting, especially in times of distress, but we have to possess the strength and resolve to “climb out” of our own graves.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was younger, I used to adore writing these kinds of mysterious and intriguing, yet almost sinister short stories, and your blog reminded me of that. For some reason, that kind of storytelling came quite naturally to me, as opposed to writing typical fiction, so I literally used to look up something along the lines of “thriller short story idea” and write for pages and pages based on the few words provided in the prompt. Also, I love that you use so many one-sentence paragraphs to create more uncertainty and suspense throughout the narrative. Thank you for this very captivating blog!
There’s a certain power that the dead hold over us—a cold grip hardened by rigor mortis and weathered by time. It hurts to let go, and it can be a long and arduous process. Sometimes it’s easier to join the dead things in the graveyard; it’s only natural, after all, to follow the ones that you love beyond the veil.
ReplyDeleteThe fog can make us forget that we are, in fact, alive. Everyone must die eventually; it is an immutable law of nature. What’s the rush? We will all join those who came before us one day. It’s best to enjoy life as it happens instead of mourning what was. Carpe diem—seize the day, seize it while your blood is still warm and you can feel it pumping through your body.