The Beckoning Grave

I thanked the florist for the lilies as I left for the graveyard. Lilies were her favourite. She’d call me a fool if she could see me now, placing flowers by her grave: she hated all of that. Anything spiritual, she had no time for. She once told me to toss her body in the trash if she died before me — I found it funny then, but not now.

I could see a funeral being conducted upon my entry. The mourners’ wails echoed boundlessly throughout the graveyard: that was me not long ago.  For the months that followed her death, I was inconsolable. Life had lost its color, flavor and intrigue: I had no interest in what would come next because I knew that she wouldn’t be there to experience it with me.

Her grave was within sight. I started to feel as though I were returning home, which was true — in a way — after all, home is where the heart is and I had given mine to her.

I replaced the old lilies that were by her gravestone with the new bunch. After disposing of the withered flowers, all that was left for me to do was stand and look at the slab of stone which served as the last vestige of her existence. Being there felt better than not being there — she may not have been much for spirituality — but, I liked to think that she could see me or feel my presence and know that I was thinking of her (wherever she was).

There was, however, one thing that unnerved me during my visits: the open plot next to her’s. The plot had remained without an occupant since I began my visits 18 months prior. The duration that it remained unoccupied wasn’t the strangest quality of the plot, no, that would have to be just how inviting it appeared to me — I always had to resist the impulse to jump in it. I may have been bereaved, but I had not given up on life, at least not yet. I wrote off the impulse as being in the same vein as the L’appel du vide, or call of the void — when people misinterpret brain signals telling them to step back from the void and instead think they should step into it.

The open plot continued to be the sole reason that I would cut my visits short. As the pull that I felt for the grave strengthened its hold over me, my visits to her grave grew shorter, too.

By her second anniversary, I would even forget to visit her some days; and then I met Christine. Needless to say, it was awkward to bring my new girlfriend to the grave of my old one — even if Christine assured me that she was fine with it.

It was when Christine and I had been dating for 3 months that I completely stopped visiting her grave. Christine made me happy, but there was still a nagging feeling that was always there: It wasn’t grief, it was that call of the void I had felt for the open grave. Even though my visits may have stopped, the grave was still calling out to me.

The feeling began to disrupt my sleep and many other facets of my life; I had no appetite since all I could feel was the grave’s calling. I saw doctors, specialists and nutritionists: all of whom failed to help me. The only solution I could think of was to continue to visit her grave, without Christine’s knowledge.

I entered the graveyard with a bunch of lilies for my first visit in months. There was yet another funeral being conducted when I arrived. As I drew closer to her grave, the sense of the grave’s calling was replaced by a potent sense of guilt — a guilt that stemmed from the sight of her grave in such a state of neglect. The last bunch of lilies I had placed by her gravestone were still there: seeing how withered they were had me wondering what she looked like in her coffin. I cast that macabre thought away, along with the dead flowers.

I placed the fresh lilies by her gravestone, but her grave still radiated a negative energy. It was as if she were mad at me from beyond. Perhaps it was just guilt eating away at me for not visiting her, however, the negative energy was palpable. When I saw that the adjacent plot was still unoccupied, I didn’t feel unnerved like before, I was infuriated — possibly as a result of the negative energy. With anger in my heart, I grabbed a graveyard caretaker as he was passing by:

“Who is this grave reserved for!?” I demanded to know as I stretched out my finger at the pit.

The caretaker was taken aback. He looked at me for a prolonged moment and recognised me.

“It was reserved for you,” he said.

My grip on the man’s collar slackened from shock. I needed to know more, but I couldn’t find the right words. The caretaker noticed my predicament and afforded me an explanation.

“Your late girlfriend came to me some months before her passing to arrange an additional plot be reserved directly next to her’s. She told me it was to be yours. When I asked her if you were also terminally ill, she told me that you wouldn’t be able to go on living without her.”

The caretaker then left me with my thoughts. I tried to come to any other conclusion than that which was most obvious — she wanted me to take my own life: That’s why there was such an energy surrounding her grave, she’s upset that I was able to move on!

The anger which was still in my heart was now directed at her. I could feel her in my presence, so I knew she would hear what I had to say.

“I thought I loved you, but had I known that this was who you truly were, I never would have wasted a second of time on you!”

I then retrieved the fresh lilies and threw them in the trash.

“I’m with Christine now, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” I said as I took my leave for, what I thought, would be my last visit.

On my way home, I saw a crowd gathered by the flower stall that I frequented for the lilies. I pulled over to investigate further. I asked onlookers what had happened, they told me that a car suddenly veered off the road and struck some poor woman. ‘Christine!’ Her name burst to the forefront of my mind. A panic came over me as I shoved people out of my way in an attempt to verify that it wasn’t her. ‘Why did I say those things to her before I left,’ I thought, ‘of course she would interpret my words as a provocation,’ I thought; ‘It’s my fault Christine is dead,’ I thought. I arrived at the front of the crowd — then I knew — it was Christine who lay dead within the flower stall: No flowers touched her, except for the lilies that were strewn over her corpse.

I visit Christine’s grave every day. She was buried in one of the last plots available — the one next to her killer’s.