The moon was shining high in the sky, illuminating the small stone chapel and shedding light onto the tombstones surrounding it. They stood orderly around the building, but their placement became more and more disorderly the further away they were, until they stopped abruptly near the fence cutting off the graveyard from the rest of the world. There was a gravel road leading from the chapel to the graveyard gates, and several trodden dirt paths among the headstones. Only one person frequented these paths.
The door of the chapel opened up with a loud creak that echoed tenfold in the silence, and an old man stepped through it into the night. The moonlight reflected off of his hairless, creased head and highlighted the many patches and dirt stains on his clothes. The healed-up remains of a deep cut scarred his face where his right eye should be. He was carrying a shovel and a rake in one hand, while holding up a lantern with the other. Its light illuminated his morbidly thin frame, his bones practically showing beneath the skin amidst the patches of shadows they formed. He closed the door behind himself and stepped onto the road.
The old man, Pastor, was the caretaker of the graveyard. Having no home to go back to, he’d been living in the chapel for many long years. He knew all the headstones well – their names, their numbers, their epitaphs. He dug most of these graves, and was always there when their new residents arrived. It made him feel somewhat responsible. Nobody else would take care of these shrines, and without him they’d just be overgrown with weed. The dead deserve better.
It’d be false to claim that Pastor had any kind of love for the dead. But his hatred for the living served a similar purpose, and in the end, he generally found the graves to be better company. People care too much about material desires, chasing them their entire life, willing to do anything to get more just to lose them all when the time comes. It doesn't matter what it is – as long as it's "more", they want it. He knew this well – he’d had plenty of firsthand experience with such throughout his long life.
The dead don’t need anything but an orderly grave. The dead won’t come after you to try and harm you. The dead care not about themselves and will listen to your woes.
Sometimes the dead will even answer them.
Pastor let out a tired sigh as he began walking among the mounds, following one of the many paths his feet trampled over the years. His bones creaking with each step, he held his lantern high, looking around, examining the graves. The light of the moon and the lantern combined into many distorted shadows patching the ground around him, but he gave no heed to the unnerving shapes. His one sunken eye swept over the surrounding area until he reached a certain spot.
At first glance, this part of the graveyard looked like any other, but even without a marker he could tell that this was where he stopped working last night. Most of his job consisted of making rounds through the labyrinth of dirt mounds, making sure each and every one of them looked orderly without as much as a spot of weed on them. He softly put the lantern and shovel on the ground, grabbing the rake in his two shaking hands before he stepped over to the next grave in line. He stopped in front of it, planting the head of the rake into the ground while loosely holding its end with both hands, staring at the gravestone, waiting.
Isolde Lockwood. 1965 – 2002. ‘Until the day breaks and the shadows flee.’
The wind whispered a subtle melody through the branches of the nearby trees, and for several minutes, nothing happened. But then a faint white shade began appearing above the grave, slowly becoming more and more visible as it took the form of a young woman. She had long hair and big eyes, her frail, nebulous form floating inches above the mound. Her pale face betrayed no emotion as she locked eyes with the caretaker, who was unfazed by the apparition. He waited patiently, staring at her with a calm, stern expression. Several more minutes passed in silence until the woman slowly nodded. Then she faded away, disappearing without a trace.
When she was gone, Pastor grabbed his rake once again, putting the head gently onto the mound. With permission now received, he began smoothing down the dirt, taking great care to get rid of any weed he came across – exposure to the winds and rain made it look cloddy, and home to many unwanted plants.
The silence covered the graveyard like a blanket, making it feel completely detached from the outside world as Pastor kept working. The sound of the lantern’s flame burning, the clumps of dirt rolling around beneath the rake, his bones creaking silently with each movement – all these small noises served to emphasize the unsettling silence. Pastor didn’t mind. To him, it was peace.
