The Man Who Lived in the Cemetery, Part 5
Part 5
For reasons unknown
to anyone but the Unitarians who owned the land the cemetery was laid out in such
a way that sections of recent burials were adjacent to sections that were
filled a few decades before. So it was
that J in looking for someone he knew stumbled across the grave of his
childhood friend’s father.
The grave was
partly in the shade of a large hedge that abutted a horse ranch where well to
do folks stabled their daughter’s horses (it was inevitably the daughter’s
horse, given as a gift to assuage the guilt of weekend events missed due to
chemically-fueled adventures with fellow finance bros). The horse ranch was exceptionally well kept,
the smell minimal even on the hottest August day.
The only
conflict between the horsey set and the cemetery was when the column of trees
that preceded the hedgerow had been stricken by a virus and cut down thus
opening a line of sight from the riding paths to the graves and reminding the
wealthy of an inevitable that they’d prefer to ignore. Curses were uttered, lawsuits were threatened
but ultimately fast-growing hedges were planted to once again blind the
affluent to their ultimate fate.
J’s childhood
friend’s father was not a rich person so his final resting place was as close
as he’d get to a tony horse ranch. J
never knew is friend’s father but seeing the name carved on a slab of granite
made him think of the childhood friend for the first time in quite some
time. He wondered if his friend ever
stood in this spot, saw the grave. It
seemed unlikely given that the friend had moved a few thousand miles away and
they were only in contact via the Internet from time to time.
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