Meet you at the cemetery gates

Look upon my works, ye mighty...

There’s an old cemetery in the middle of the city where I live. I was walking through it the other day, admiring grave architecture that spans centuries.

I like the old stones best. They poke out of the earth, crooked and chipped, like the bottom teeth of some people I used to know. Humble and honest. There aren’t a lot of details etched into those stones. Some don’t even have dates. Others are so old, the particulars have long been smoothed away by the elements. They’re just markers now, advising future humans that there’s a body below, best not to dig.

I’m not so into the newer slabs — the towers, pentagons, and marble shrines. They act like Pharaohs rested below. Not people who yelled at their TVs during football games, cut the line at Walmart and drove all the way up your ass on the highway. If only those poor souls had known how crowded the afterlife would be for dead demigods — like an endless line at Costco. But then again, they had been digging those graves from the moment they were born.

When I was a drug addict, my heart stopped once. Maybe for a minute. One of my guests had a Narcan kit, which is very effective in bringing people who had overdosed on fentanyl back to life. But there was some debate amongst my addict friends — as to whether to bring me back. You see, before my untimely demise I had left my laptop open, leaving banking details open to all. That could have kept the party going a lot longer, dead body in the living room or not. Honestly, they would have had my blessing.

At the time, I wasn’t particularly attached to this life. All the same, thanks to Narcan, I did end up rising — angry and disappointed — from the dead.

Why didn’t you just let me go?

Someone had still managed to send a money transfer from my account to a dealer and disappear. What did I care? I was alive. Hurrah.

In any case, I probably wouldn’t have ended up at the downtown cemetery. It’s expensive, busy, and aside from a few standouts, the company wouldn’t be much of an upgrade.

I definitely wouldn’t have liked to be beside the guy who ‘loved hunting and trapping and skeet shooting.’

Forest animals probably still celebrate the anniversary of that psycho’s death.

But if I did end up here, I’d like a stone near the walkway. Especially a corner stone. You wouldn’t believe how much those stones are frequented by dogs. You can see the stains. They’re always getting peed on.

Dogs know how to keep us humble — even when we’re dead. Grounded too. When I visited the other day, a couple of them were sniffing and skittering excitedly between the markers. Ancient stones. Grand stones. They didn’t care about all that. They made the most of their time, finding awe and wonder in everything. And, unlike our counterparts below, they saw a world of endless possibility.

They were frisky, feverish reminders of how good it can be on this side of the dirt mound.