By Ken Lamb
The car moved slowly through the cemetery, fallen twigs and acorns crunching under the tires. Duane Abraham squinted through the late afternoon sunlight. He passed the “Garden Of Eternal Rest”, and drove up a slight hill, where a small sign announced that he was entering the “Sacred Acre Of Light.”
“Jesus”, he mumbled to himself , “The final indignity.”
Almost there, just another twenty yards. Duane pulled the old Nova off the drive, onto the grass. He pulled deeply on his cigarette and turned off the ignition.
“Maybe this time,” he thought, “Maybe there will be something.”
He opened the door, got out, and felt the autumn chill. His feet made a swishing sound through the fallen leaves.
“Damn,” he thought, “Why don’t they keep this place up better?”
Now, he’d have to search through the leaves to find the plaque. The cemetery stopped using headstones decades earlier to cut overhead. Now, instead of paying a crew to mow around the headstones, one worker on a tractor efficiently cut the lawn, running right over the plaques. But the plaques always got covered with leaves and grass clippings.
“Why do I even bother,” he asked himself as he began kicking leaves away with his foot. “I think right about here.” He bent down and cleared away some leaves with his hand. “Shit.”
He moved a little to his left, tried again. A glint of bronze shone from where he swept at the swirling leaves. Down on his knees, he started sweeping his arms in wide arcs, revealing the small plaque.
“Donna Hunter 1976-2001.”
Duane stood up and looked around. He was alone. A cricket chirped nearby. He stared at the plaque. He tried to summon a grief that didn’t seem to exist. This was no good. He felt nothing but the numbing vacuum he’d been living in for over a year. It had stealthily crept in and consumed him even before the death of his fiancee. Now, he felt like little more than a robot. He worked every day in a little cubicle, was pleasant to his associates, paid his bills on time. He felt no pain, no anguish, no pleasure, no happiness. Just…nothing. At the funeral, people told him how well he seemed to be holding up. He’d guessed maybe they were right. He wasn’t so sure, though.
A crow started calling in the distance. Duane could see the sun sinking lower through the branches of an old oak. He took the pint of wild turkey from his jacket pocket, took a drink, grimaced. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Replacing the bottle in his pocket he felt the picture there, pulled it out, gazed at it. Donna at a party. She had been beautiful. Long brown hair, green eyes, all tanned from days at the beach. This had been his favorite picture of her. He bent down and placed the photo on the plaque. A breeze caught it and carried it a few feet away, where it landed in a small puddle of water. He sighed and swayed a little as he walked over to retrieve it. He wiped the picture on his pants leg. He walked over and this time wedged a corner of the photo under the nameplate on the plaque. His mind wandered.
Donna had been amazingly courageous. When she was diagnosed, she vowed to survive, and would not let fear rule either of their lives. She had an unshakable faith in a god that never saw fit to reveal himself to Duane. She kept fighting even as the cancer devoured her, leaving her emaciated and bedridden. The disease finally made it’s way to her brain, erasing the last vestige of who she was. With no siblings and both parents dead, her care fell solely on Duane’s shoulders. He took a leave of absence and prepared for the end. Eventually, even the incoherent ramblings ceased and she became silent. Only the sporadic gasps of breath broke the silence of the bedroom. Donna had made it very clear that she wanted to die at home, and Duane had prepared the small home they shared for this eventuality. Medications lined the top of a dresser. Oxycontin, morphine patches, tomoxofin, a whole slew of others.
It was getting cold. Duane buttoned up his jacket. He tried to think of the exact moment of his decision. His memory was blurry. He vaguely remembered crushing the oxycontin, filling the syringe…
He felt no real relief when the death certificate listed cancer as the cause of death. It wouldn’t have mattered to him. He was already living in his own prison. Duane took a last look at the plaque and started toward the car.
He got in and shut the door. He reached into the glove box, and pulled out the .44 magnum. The sun was a brilliant orange as it sank low on the horizon. Duane felt its warmth through the windshield. Tears streamed down his face. Duane stared down the barrel of the .44 and smiled….
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