Wet Flowers.
I have only been to cemeteries three times in my live.
The first was Arlington cemetery In D.C. in eighth grade. Certain sections were tombstones of all different shapes and sizes, mostly big, honoring fallen heroes, I suppose. But the majority of the sections were crosses. Endless rows of crosses. Thad run out of space for big ornate tombs for the heroes, our guide had said, now they were all just crosses. I suppose they didn’t have a choice when it happened.
The second was in West Virginia, Mt. lookout cemetery that summer. It was much smaller than Arlington, just the families that had lived in that small town their whole lives I guess. I saw the grave markers of my father’s family going back and back and back. I saw what seemed to be my great-great-great-grandmother, if I could read the moss correctly. I saw my great grandfather, Potter Fish, had died at the age of fifty, and I’m told his brother younger. I suppose he hadn’t put much thought into it, where it was he would be.
The third was at the end of my sophomore year. My parents were miles and miles away, and I had nowhere to be till 9, so I went for a walk.
I came across a cemetery. There was a lady at the gate who was leaving as I was coming in, so she left the door open. This cemetery was large, and ornate, rolling hills of tombstones of all shapes, sizes and colors.
I saw before me to my left the Jewish section. There was I sign nearby that said something in Hebrew, ‘cemetery’ I guess. So I walked through the tombstones all Isolated from the others, void of uniqueness, except that we knew they were Jewish, and that they had sisters and fathers who lay beside them, with their name. I wonder if this was how they wanted it to be. Defined by faith, I guess that’s not that bad, if they were faithful.
When I had finished looking at that section, I realized I was alone. There was no one left visiting relatives or friends. Then I realized that I was an intruder, I knew no one here, and had no one to mourn for. I walked on.
I walked into a bigger, older section atop a hill. These dates went back to 1870. They had family graves and were ornate, gargoyles, and angles giving scriptures, all cracked by earthquakes since. I guess no one bothered to fix them. I suppose no one put up the money.
The sprinklers came on. I was an intruder. I guess I missed closing time. That’s one of those thing I had never thought about, sprinklers in a cemetery. I guess you just think that it tends itself, when you put a body into the ground with the embalming, it embalms everything around it. That the tombstone never changes. Only the flowers blow away. But the sprinklers came on. Not in my section, and I didn’t get wet. So I kept on walking.
I walked atop a hill and saw before me all the sections that this cemetery covered. I wondered if there were many sections that were older. I wondered just how old they were. I saw several large marble structures, with boxes for the dead, all in columns and rows, like a great filing cabinet. These were more recent, they weren’t filled out. I wondered if they had run out of room.
Then there came a great slapping noise, of water striking against stone, but mechanical, beated-out. It went away and I kept walking, then it came again. This time I saw it. A tomb stone, a great pillar of some fancy rock, newish, had been placed only a foot or two in front of a sprinkler. The great Smack of this methodic system of sustaining life, hitting the back of this poor man, forever, overwhelmed me in this instant. I figured that I was the only one that had ever stayed past closing in a cemetery to watch the cold punishment of this unfortunate man. I was the only person to see the gifted flowers drenched, and the only one to hear this horrid noise. I suppose it was the noise of death.
It was, to me, the most profoundly depressing thing I had ever seen.
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