If graveyards turned digital
Blue belonged to the Cherokee, back when that was a thing. Now, e pulls out the weeds in the new cemetery. Through screens showing the deceased and pictures highlighting their life, e makes them all pretty, getting ready for tonight.
Eir dog chases a squirrel through the gates, to the river. It splashes: it’s just a stream, this’s been a dry year. Blue calls the dog, it comes crashing back, “Ernesto,” is its name, the town mayor called him that.
The suave cars pull out, no drivers in sight. The ladies and men are all dressed in black. They wear painted faces, skeletons in the dark, as they laugh and they sing, bringing orange flowers to each screen. The dog comes up to them. They pat him: know his name. They wave to Blue, who smiles, waving back.
The women adorn the tablets and the screens, set the food, get the drinks. They play music, an old Mexican tune, as they sit telling stories, of who they were with all those in the tombs. Everyone exchanges glasses, laughs, and some cries. Ernesto wags his tail at the night.
Blue spots a child, about nine and alone. E approaches, “What’s wrong? Where’s home?”
The child holds a candle and prays to the moon. He looks at the stranger, “What happened to you?”
Blue touches eir scar, where the bronze turned to white, “I was stuck in the middle of a Cherokee sword fight.”
The child asks to touch it, extends his hand, and feels the slash encrusted deep into the stranger’s right arm.
“Why are you here? Don’t they send all kids to boarding schools?”
The child sighs and is silent. “They let me go out, if only for once… See, my brother…”
He died.
Blue looks at the grave with photos of two children smiling. E bites eir lip and calls for the dog, at least Ernesto might cheer the boy up.
The boy smiles as Ernesto nestles between his legs. Blue looks at the slideshow shining in the grave. The child that’s alive seems not a day younger from today.
Blue looks at the year confirming eir fear. The death is not recent: the boy’s brother died just last year.
“My name is Juan,” nods the child to the stranger he just met.
“Blue,” e answers. “Hope you have fun today.”
As Blue leaves, so does the dog.
Juan comes with em, explaining, “It’s lonely, here in the park.”
Blue nods. E takes the boy to join the celebration: a place where piñatas and firecrackers shine brighter than uncharted constellations.
Blue walks away, thinking Juan distracted, but the boy follows em to another grave, attracted.
“Where are your parents?” Blue asks. “I’m sure they are worried.”
“They died the same day as my brother, killed in a car crash. So they’re buried.”
Blue thanks the night for shielding eir face, because working at this job, not one tear should fall on a grave.
Blue gets the dog and goes to the river. E sets the candles for the late-night swimmers. The boy stares as Blue works eir way through the bed, lighting the flames of yesterday’s dead.
Blue looks over eir shoulder, catching Juan staring, “You should join the festivities!” E tells him.
But Juan shakes his head. “I want to be sad today.”
Blue sighs and stops lighting the candles. E kneels next to the boy. “It’s okay to cry and then sing to the night.”
But Juan shakes his head again. “I’m not sad, that’s the point. I’d feel guilty if I join.”
Blue takes the boy into eir arms. “There’s nothing wrong when you are the one to say goodbye.”
But the boy shakes his head again. He burst out of eir lock and screams, “You don’t get it. I got what I wanted all my damn life.”
He stares at the stars.
“I wanted them to die to make my life harder. I wanted to be that guy, the one that must become tougher.”
Blue calls the dog who’s off chasing tadpoles. E waits in the silence, angry to speak any more.
“You think I’m a demon.”
Blue softens. “Not at all. I think you don’t know how it feels like to fall.”
Ernesto drips from the stream. Blue gets an idea.
“Okay, tough boy, here’s how you can heed your call.”
Blue points to the stream.
“People are like legs, they help you stand tall. You wanted to cut them? Use the rock, the one there by the wall, and smash your leg twice, three times, or more, all the way until you can’t feel it at all.”
Juan grabs the rock and goes to the stream. He stumbles. He’s trembling.
“Don’t worry if you scream- the fireworks will hide the noise. And if someone asks what happened, you can say you slipped and fell all the way downstream.”
Juan looks at Blue with hurt in his eyes.
He wished for the death of others yet can’t commit to a small sacrifice…
“You thought you were strong. Well, boy, you are weak. Think you’d be tough, you are a fool in the-”
Juan takes the rock and smashes it, right onto his knee. Bones crack, like a tree splinters, veins, blood, puss in the roots. Mouth sucks in the air, as veins pop in his neck. Juan chokes; there’s no breath.
Fireworks crash around as Blue runs to the scene. E grabs the boy in eir arms. All his side is limp. The dog barks as the owner runs for some help. The boy screams in the dark: his face is growing pale. Blue slips in the mud; e almost gets there.
All faces turn to the river monster and the hanging baby boy. Stuck in a frenzy of lights and smoke, they forget the mirror by the door. They chant. They roar. They run toward the offering of their ghosts.
With hauled flower vases, they swarm them both. With fists and masked faces, they go off course.
They topple the old spirit, kick Blue in the ground. Eir blood is the potion received by the hounds.
Blue tries to say they have it all wrong, but tonight all can happen: death is alive. They take out the child, throw a rock at his face. Blue shakes out of the rumble, but they follow in its wake.
“Pull eir long hair!”
“Skin eir arms!”
“Do anything to send that spirit off!”
The dog barks, bites, and growls, but in motions quick and adroit, someone grabs his neck and turns off the chord.
Blood runs to the stream where lights drift aglow.
People wake up from the dream. What they’ve done, they don’t know.
The music grows soft. The faces register the scene. They huddle around each other. Men and women start blaming the other.
“It was you who threw the rock!”
“And you who pulled the hair!”
“You who decided what shouldn’t be there!”
“It was you who raised the music!”
“And you who sold the masks.”
“You who took it completely out of hand.”
“Stop!” A woman screams looking at the graveyard screens illuminate with a message from their king.
“Tonight we got the news that the thirty journalists imprisoned have been dead the whole month. As tensions boil with New York, we’re raising the alarm. Grab your family, keep your friends close, trust your neighbors because beyond the border, there’s no love at all.”
The message cuts back to images of their loved ones, happy in the dark.
The woman turns to the two lives with no name. “I say we just toss them away.”
Everyone gapes, but everyone follows the other’s steps as they inch toward the bodies, take the keeper, the boy, and the dog away from the graves.
The river is a stream not big enough for their sin, but they still go and haul the bodies in. They turn up the music and light up the wicks. They maneuver their guilt with emotional joysticks.
The group puts on its mask again.
An old lady, spirit no doubt, creeps into the party, sick with a hunch. “You waited for a reason to vent out your grief. Vent it for validation, of who I am — shit I need to pee.”
The old lady talks as she drips.
“Cycles of life are never broken with time, but nature will always find its way to surprise.”
