Please forgive me for this story, but it is 4:00 on Halloween morning, and I am unable to sleep. I don't know where this came from, but I think it must be because I read Helen Highwater's Red Dust this evening -- last evening. This is morbid, angsty, short, and all written just now, after it slid into my mind while I tossed and turned and tried to get to sleep. All Hallow's Eve, apparently, chose this early morning hour to haunt me. Please don't judge me too harshly on this one -- 4:00 AM inspiration, especially on October 31, is bound to be strange.


The Bone Garden

You gathered up old papers, old photos -- and you flipped through them, one-by-one, remembering. Old Polaroids, faded and stuck together; the colors blotted and blotched. This one of your birthday, this one of your father, this one of the river. The river you remembered; the picture, you didn't. You weren't there. Others were there -- others stood by silently. The red hair, the black hair. Familiar to you, but from a lifetime ago. Old friends, aged in the image, with their heads bowed, standing on the bank of a blackened river, the city scorched beyond. And at their feet, three simple mounds of dirt.

You walked back to the river, to the blackened banks, and there you kneeled beside where your brothers lay below. There was nothing there anymore. Nothing but the silence and the desolation, and your fingers bloody from clawing at the frozen ground. And when you saw the white of bare bones, you stopped and you stared. Over the years, they had moved closer. Once apart, they had found one another in the dark and crushing earth. Broken shells turned outward, heads touching, as if their minds had linked together. Which one was which, at first you couldn't tell, but from the small bone garden you heard their voices rising. And they whispered to you, telling you that you were home. At last, you were home. How they had missed you. They had waited for so long for you. They waited. The world fell apart and they waited. Their lives came to an end and they waited. They waited for you, and you came home. And you closed your eyes as you listened, and they told you to look at them. And you looked and saw it was different, it had changed.

The hole still stood open -- welcoming, beckoning. But the bones had moved aside, leaving room for one more. Leaving room for you. And you climbed down into the hole and you laid with them. Like when you were children -- scared of the dark, scared of the world, but safe with each other. And you closed your eyes and their cold bones warmed you, and you felt their breath on your skin. And slowly, slowly you fell asleep. And they whispered to you, and they sang with you. Words you never knew, but they were there. They taught you. And you sang until the words faded into silence.

Welcome home, welcome home

Here in the bone garden,

We welcome you home

Here in the bone garden,

You find what you lost

The warmth of the sun,

In the cold of the earth

Open the windows

Cover the mirrors

Don't speak the name

Or the lost will linger

And the blue flame dances

As your ghost slides by

In the garden