Grave Desserts

Edit (#2)

At the corner of 5th Street, and Mayberry, an old man had become quite visibly unglued. The old man was stationed beneath a tree near the cemetery. He was babbling incoherently, and smiling, and frowning respectively, with a wild look in his eye that was directed at no one in particular. Frightened nightwalkers who were stumbling home from the bars glanced back it him in horror, and disgust while he continued to scream out at the dark sky. Spittle ran down his chin, as he never seemed to tire from proclaiming his senseless sermon that no one seemed interested in. The old man reeked of urine, and feces and death. They did not understand his disturbing gestures he was making in his stained black tailored coat. His arm movements were so striking that they seemed to physically mimick Hitler from old war videos, except there was almost a transcendental logic to what he was doing, as if he was restating an ancient rite, or trying to illustrate some symbol of what was to come.

“I see it...It’s got a holds of us now!...The folding fragile figment maitre d in full frontal! FGGHHFug Phil, and the mob he rode in on! Fuck this fan mail mob Mekons, and the side huss jip job when Darrin Dorry was Christ...but now he come full out and fuck figgy!!! Moon mother of my own! Bastard piss blow-hard, hard-hat, semi-costal CCCCIIIGGG!!! Gold as is when it wear me to come out, and try to psyche-blows ’em! No we need to psyche-blows ’em just to make a mirror mole soul taste so we can slip, and relate and reggggggggurrrrritate their piss plastic seal! The Seal is a wand, and what we’res deal wits I tells you, and I know just what what what I...OOOO...you!! Oh, no, you, YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU!!!...I seen Hugh Hop on film and all the crust you can eat at Country gob Kitchen....it’s a real Dandy Darem yarn you hung got, and you would know now and now and now and NOW and NOW and NOW and first and thirst thirty thong type of thought or not theroy....”

*

Chris Potts was out pleasurably wandering on foot, and enjoying the rare qualities of the haunted midnight hour in Nectanebo City. He loved to walk the streets loaded on grass, and do his routine stop by the 5th Street graveyard on his tour through Nectanebo’s furthest reaches. This had been his hometown for thirty years, and he felt like he knew many of it’s dark secrets. He knew about the tunnels under the streets that a supposed secret society traversed at odd hours. He had a feeling he could enter them through Neheb Park, but there really was no need. Tonight was more of just an appreciation of the cities occult aura from a distance of observation sort of deal.

The city seemed surpisedly different at this time of night. It had more bite, and electricity which could spring from any vacant corner at any given time unexpectedly. Chris had his wits about him the best at this time! He became alive, and longed for the discovery of abandoned and haunted recesses that other folks would disregard with a calloused shrug. He came upon the graveyard after crossing the street, and passed the rusted gates in a hurry, so he wouldn’t be seen by the passing cars. Holding his breath, he paused for a minute, hearing a car door slam. When it was silent, he ran past a line of graves, up the hill so he could better view the full moon in all of her preternatural glory. There she was! So terrific, and big as a house! It must have been harvest time, because that moon took up half the sky. It was pale as a polished skull though, which was different then other harvest moons he had witnessed.

Chris could see into every crater, and so he took some time just admiring the beauty and grace of the haunted moon. He then glanced over absently at the shed at the edge of the graveyard, where a fence was seperating the cemetery from a person’s house. A ladder lay against the house, presumbly abandoned after a long day of work outside.

Chris wondered if it would be depressing to live beside the cemetery, or if it would make you more appreciative of your fragile life. He studied the house, with a few lights on still waiting to be switched, and admired the houses’ back garden that gazed out upon the cemetery through the chain-link fence. It sounded, from where Chris was still observing, like someone was in the bathroom, and running water. After another few lingering moments the light went out, and now there was only one light at the back of the house. Absently, Chris unbottoned his shirt pocket, and removed the rolled up Marijuana cigarette from it’s hiding place. Popping it in his mouth, he cupped his hands around the flame. He inhaled the pungent smoke, turning his head back to the arresting moon that robbed him of any other desire but of praise.

In the distance, to the right of the hill he had mounted, Chris could hear a scratching sound building, and rising from some spot in the graveyard that he could not see. It would stop, and then pick up again, within a couple second intervals. The wind picked up a bit, and chilled his back a little. There were ancient trees surrounding him like inquistive monks, popping up amongst all the countless row of graves. Chris thought maybe he would continue his trek around the city, but he was a little apprehensive of the sound he was hearing further down the hill. Crushing his joint out, he decided to chance the exit, and started his descent towards the entrance of the cemetery that led to the street that was dead quiet at this time. On his way to the exit, Chris spied a hill of white in the direction where the scratching sound had issued from. When he approached the naked white figure, he saw that it was a naked woman covered in blood, and dirt. She was laying on the soil near an open grave. The bloodied woman seemed to be in a altered state of some kind. Still unaware of Chris, she was shaking while she lifted clumps of dirt to the sky, and dropped them over her naked breasts in ecstatic movements that seemed to make her smile while the fresh blood on her lips poured down her face. She was quite beautiful, and her serpentine eyes flashed in the night, while Chris watched totally enthralled. He had no idea where this woman had sprung from, but this was indeed a very strange night to behold!

(To be continued...)

Photographer: Seth Brandenburg

Model: Stephanie Cary

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2018

Bunny Villaire