My mother’s grave had been shattered. A heart-sized hole had been smashed through the glass, and a rock, similarly sized, lay on the red velvet of her dress, sunk down slightly in the space below her ribs. The embalming fluid had evaporated away and the corpse was rotted down almost to the bone. The nameplate at the foot of her grave had been pried away and removed, leaving behind a residue of rust like tears running down the small stone it had been set in.
The other graves were all intact, a sea of serene souls staring up from their glass tombs at the uncaring skies. Even in death my mother had not been forgiven. Even in me some saw a continuation of her crimes, as if somehow it was my fault. As if somehow it was ever hers.
I reached in and retrieved the rock from her lap. The sharp edges of the glass scratched at my arm, drawing blood. A droplet caught on the glass, growing fat for a second before dripping down onto her dress. A trade, I suppose, for the rock.
I walked out into the vast field of glass, past my mother, into the deeper history of the town, an intricate family tree lined out forever in these tombs filled with un-aging flesh. I could trace my family roots back, as they spread out and out and out until eventually almost everyone was kin.
I wanted no part of it. This cold town was punishment enough. To be forced into infinity out here, it was an unbearable thought. Perhaps it was a mercy, what had been done to my mother, what had been done to innumerable others out here in this sickening parade, their names not just forgotten but forcibly erased.
***
Beyond the graves, at the cliff’s edge, she hurled the rock out into the ocean and wept new tears for her twice murdered mother.
__________
Notes:
1. Another unpublished thing from 2013
__________
