The Lost Graveyard.

by David Thomas

do what I sided I would on my campaign. I wasn’t the man I thought I was.”

  His eyes narrowed then he began to rub his hands together as if cold. “And if I had that power in my hands, I knew given time… I would become corruptible, become weak. I guess some deep part of me, one last spark sensed this and it moved my hand to vote for a man, I knew I never could be.”

  He got up and walked away quite strongly for a man of his age, he didn’t even say goodbye as he went into his grave.

  Scar and I looked at each other, gobsmacked.

  Scar began to shake her head. “I liked that man, thought he was ok, but instead he turned out like everything else that’s shitting in this world. Sexton, why are most people like that. Why is the world full of masks?”

  “I really don’t know. Let’s just try and forget about it.”

  Shaking her head once more, she put her cards to one side and fumbled around in her coat pockets. “Do you smoke, Sexton?”

  “No I don’t.”

  Finding what she was looking for, she took out her tobacco pouch and peered inside. “Not much left.”

  Mr Kydd’s leaving like that had shaken her up, she looked confused. Then a thought came into my head. “Can I ask you a question, Scar?”

  She slowly looked up at me with just her eyes as she took out a pinch of tobacco and placed it instinctively onto a cigarette paper. “You’re taking long enough about it.”

  “Did you really kill yourself?”

  Her eyes quickly looked back down as she rolled the tobacco and paper together. “...Yeah.”

  “Why was that?”

  Taking a deep breath, she raised her head and looked me straight in the eyes. “Because I was young, because my parents didn’t love me, because life made no sense to me all the time. Because, because, because.” she raised her voice. “And all that’s happing here is the icing on the cake. Sexton, I want to be alone now, you got your answer ok.” She quickly licked the cigarette. “Why the hell did you ask me that question for anyway?”

  “I just can’t see you as a suicide…As a mask. I’m sorry I asked.”

  I left her alone reading her cards, poured over every mysterious detail, in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Now and then she stared at the dark horizon, as if looking for something beyond its black border.

  The following night as we just sat round the fire, something neither I nor, Scar expected. We could see Mr Kydd walking towards us - his face was grim and full of shame.

  “May I sit with you both? Please.” His voice was shallow and pleading.

  Scar started to get angry. “What the hell is going on here? You told us, you told us you’re secret. But you’ve come back. God damn it, you told us.”

  He held his head low unable to look us in the face. “...I lied.”

  Scar raised her voice at him. “Lied, how the hell can you lie?” then pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re talking about your soul and you decided to lie to us.”

  He almost sounded like a child as he buried his head in his hands. “Yes.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “It makes no sense, no sense at all. Why?”

  “Because, Scar.” He whimpered. “The truth, the real truth was an even bigger lie.”

  She began to stand up to leave. Mr Kydd instantly looked up and put his hands out to reach to her. “Please, Scar stay, you have to. I promise you no more lies, I promise.”

  She thought for a moment then sat back down with a glare towards him.

  He lowered his head back down. “Thank you. Thank you both.”

  I threw some more sticks on the fire and Mr Kydd began.

  “When I was living the idea of death terrified me. All my life it shadowed me, like a vast abyss, right to the very end I feared its dark unknowing embrace. So you can imagine how I felt when I came back. I felt like Lazarus stumbling out of his tomb. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love it here.

  So an idea came to me when, Sam left. All I had to do was to tell a lie and pretended to go back to my grave and I would get to stay here forever. I thought I could just wait it out in my grave till you left. But can you both honestly tell me, is it such a bad thing to want, to want to live forever?”

  Scar snapped at him. “You’re a crazy old fool. We’re not living, we’re lingering.”

  “I know, Scar. But it feels like a second chance for me. It’s like being reborn. I could waste my time around here, night after night just thinking into the fire alone and just go on in my own private little world, forever.”

  “So why are you telling this to us.” Scar snapped again. “You know what’ll happen now that you’ve told us the truth don’t you.”

  “Yes I know. But I can’t let myself have it. I just can’t do it, Scar.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Because, Sexton, it would never work, never could. It’s to do with that lie I told you, that story, it’s partly true. I am corruptible and weak. And if I stayed here, I know it would turn me into some sort of monster. I’d go mad here, mad forever. How can I let myself become that monster? Do you understand? No matter how much I long to stay here and live.”

  “You’d be letting this changeable curse turn into some sort of unchangeable one.” I said.

  “There you have it, Sexton. And now I’m turning my back on all this, while I still have some sort of courage left in me. While I can still see it for what it is.”

  “What’s that then?” said, Scar her voice was becoming calmer.

  He looked at her puzzled. “Opera of course.” He began to giggle. “Well it is for me anyway.”

  She looked him hard in the eyes, he was telling the truth this time. She cheekily winked at him, he was forgiven. They were friends again.

  Seeing this brought, Mr Kydd back to his old self. “No matter where I end up from here my dear, I’m ready for it. But I’m not lying anymore to you.”

  He stood up like the better man he’d become. “Scar I’m only human, with all the trappings of a human heart - I really didn’t mean to upset you, I’m sorry, sorry to you both.”

  She rubbed her dirty face, stood up and put her arm around him. “It’s ok, Mr Kydd, it’s all said and done now an anyhow, who’s to say you won’t get to live forever. The impossible happened here, why not there, wherever there is?”

  He grinned like a child on Christmas Eve, who’d sneakily crept under the Christmas tree. “It’s worth a peek at least isn’t it my dear?”

  She hugged him even tighter. “Fate is only fate, if you let it.” She said with almost a rhyming tune.

  He then turned to me and shook my hand.

  “Goodbye, Mr Kydd.” I said.

  Scar got out her pouch of tobacco and rolled him one last cigarette and handed it to him. “For the walk back, Mr Kydd and also goodbye, you’ve done the right thing.”

  “How very kind of you, thank you, Scar.” He said humbly. “Thank you both so much for your forgiveness, it means so much to me. Goodbye, goodbye to you both.”

  She gave him a light then he turned and walked away enjoying his cigarette, glancing around with a look of regret mixed with a new found sense of solace, humming some long forgotten song from an operetta.

  I and Scar watched him go back to his grave - he got to the foot of it, finished off his cigarette, then hesitated for a moment and slowly turned his head towards us, there was a deep stillness in his eyes. He knew in his heart of hearts that this was really the end for him he was never going to get to live forever, not after what he just said.

  He hovered over his grave like a swimmer on a diving board, staring down into the unknown depths. Then spoke in a tone of acceptance, which could almost be called noble. “Nothing should last forever.” He nodded gracefully then entered into his fate, with eyes wide open.

  Scar turned her head away and for a long time we both stood there in silents, until she looked back at, Mr Kydd’s grave and ran a hand over her mouth and spoke very slowly, very thoughtfully. �
��It doesn’t make sense. Why did he come back to life, only to find out that he needed to die?” She shook her head. “You know, Sexton. I feel like a puppet, like some greater force is pulling my strings, leading me along a path. Don’t you feel it too?”

  The thought about what I’d been saying to you flashed in my head, about how I needed to see every piece of the jigsaw. “What makes you say that, Scar.” I replied softly.

  She slid her eyes towards me intently. “You’re always asking questions, but never answering any. Who are you, Sexton? Who the fuck are you really?”

  We both looked at each other for a time. Our faces were all but black now with the dirt from our graves and the smoke from the fires.

  “I’m dead like you.” I said finally.

  She only glanced at me, but it was enough to know, it was getting close. We both could feel it.

  For the rest of the night we sat watching a ground fog surround us. The weight of everyone leaving was beginning to weigh on us more than ever. Were we to have a happy ending of sorts like the others or would we be doomed to madness, if we were unable to reach into our hearts and say what needed to be said? It would be a long night for us both, the longest yet.

  The following evening was cold, real cold. But I managed to light back up the fire from the previous night’s ashes with some branches. I waited for, Scar to join me. I heard her coming out of her grave, she didn’t say anything to me, but instead collected some flowers for, Doc and Mr Kydd’s graves.

  She eventually came over and sat by the fire, pulled up her collars on her coat and stared in to the flames for a long time, listing to the dead wood crack and spit. She rolled a thin looking cigarette and took a deep breath. “No more tobacco after this.”

  “You had a good friend there.” I said.

  From inside her coat she took out her Zippo, flicked the top up and spun the wheel, touching the end of the cigarette with its flame and breathed in hard. “Pity it took my death to find that out.” She said disappointedly as blue smoke spluttered from her mouth.

  We watched the fire some more. Her eyes bit by bit began to go deeper into the flames, into her memory, into the places that are real and just beyond real. Her face became very still, marble almost, as the light flickered against her dirty skin.

  Suddenly she looked at me, straight into my eyes. That was the thing I liked about Scar - you could never work her out, not completely.

  “I should have said all this sooner. Knew what to say the first time I come here, nearly side it when, Doc had the idea about all this. Maybe it was the last grasp of my ego trying to fool itself, still trying to play up to the part of the loner. You see the cards really did keep telling me to speak, to sing, like you know in opera.”

  We both smiled at that. She turned her eyes away and spoke in a tone of voice I never hear her speak before, as if she was casting a spell. “I had a dream while I was in my grave. First time it’s happened since being here.”

  “Did you, what was it about?”

  “About the first time I came too believed in...” She took one last deep drag off her cigarette - her right knee nervously bounced up and down as she sat. “I was just a kid 12 or 13, my life at the time was pretty shit you know. Parents who couldn’t love me if they tried, a school that just seemed to mumble at me, no friends really to speak of, hell I’d never even been kissed. I know your thinking it couldn’t be that bad, just a kid feeling sorry for herself, a teenager with an axe to grind. Going through that adolescent thing of finding out how the world really works. Every parent’s worst nightmare as they say. But...”

  “No no, Scar I believe you. I know what you’re trying to say to me. Tell me more please.”

  She threw the last of the cigarette into the fire and glanced at me. “Thanks. Well anyway there I am wondering why the hell I’m stuck on this shitty rock of a planet. And at the time I used to wander the city, go everywhere by myself, churches, Wicca shops,