The orange glow of twilight starts to fade behind a silhouette of crowded buildings as I walk into Rick’s. It’s 8:30. The dinner crowd has thinned and the party crowd hasn’t arrived yet. This is the time that Helen and I loved, when we would linger for an after-dinner drink and it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. So I have come here, as I do every year, to honor her memory.

I take my usual seat at the bar. Tony, the bartender, gives me a nod as he pulls down a couple of wine glasses from the overhead rack. I nod back. We both know the ritual by heart and take comfort in it, just as we first did five years ago. That was the day I first walked into the bar alone and silently sat at this very stool. Tony knew from my expression that Helen, despite the doctors’ best efforts, had finally given up.

He grabs a bottle of Sutter Home Cabernet, Helen’s favorite, from behind the bar and pours us each a glass. We raise our drinks and offer a wordless toast. I draw my glass near and wave it under my nose to savor the bouquet. It smells just like her perfume.

I look down at the glass and see her face, a wavy image on the red surface. She looks like she did the day we met, with her brown eyes, long auburn hair and slightly pale complexion rose-colored by the wine. She is beautiful and remains so as I watch her age thirty years in the breath of a moment. Even in the last two years, as the cancer took hold and the chemotherapy caused her hair to fall out, she was still beautiful. She refused to let anyone know the amount of pain hiding behind her radiant smile.

A senseless guilt washes over me once again, guilt caused by the fact that I couldn’t save her. I took her to better doctors than I could afford, sat by her bedside constantly and silently prayed for God to ease Helen’s suffering and take me instead. Despite my pleas, she’s gone, and as I raise my glass to my lips, I know this is both my penance and my communion. Take this and drink, for this is my blood.

As I place the empty glass on the bar, it is enveloped by darkness. I’m surrounded by black, and I’m afraid until I see her fade into view. She is wearing the gown she wore on the day we wed, except she’s not really wearing it; it looks more like it’s a part of her. She smiles as she reaches out and strokes my cheek, brushing away a tear I didn’t even know I had shed. I open my mouth to tell her that I love her and I miss her and I’m so very sorry for what she went through, but she places a finger on my lips before I can speak. I don’t have to say anything. She already knows.

She takes my hand, pulls me close to her and we start to dance. There is no music. We don’t need any. We have each other, and that’s all we need. We dance forever, my hand pressed against the small of her back as we twirl across an unseen floor. I never want it to end, and as she gazes into my eyes, I realize it doesn’t have to.

We rise. The surrounding darkness slowly melts away as we twirl and laugh and continue our dance. Floating upward, I’m consumed by joy even as I glance down and see my body with its unkempt gray hair and wrinkled brown overcoat slumped over the bar. Tony is frantically pushing buttons on a telephone, and I can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of his bug-eyed frightened expression.

I look at Helen again and as she looks back, the misery of five long years without her is completely forgotten. Once again, I have love and for the rest of eternity, that’s all I need.

Maggie, just be quiet and listen. I don’t have much time. Yeah, I know I’m shaking. Yeah, a coffee sounds great.

I was driving home on Coop Road after my shift ended. You know how high the corn is this summer? I was just tooling along, maybe doing 50. About two miles from home, a girl runs out of the corn and stops right in the middle of the road. Stares at my headlights.

There was nothing I could do. I ran right over her. But there’s no crash, no sound. I slammed on the brakes, jumped out and looked at the car. Nothing. I grab a flashlight and look at the road behind me. Nothing.

So I turn the car around and drive slow along the corn rows. All I see is my skid marks where I slammed on the brakes. I’m sweating like a pig and my heart is a jackhammer. I turn around one more time and drive slow with my window down. I stick the flashlight beam into the corn rows, hoping I’ll see something.

Nothing.

Two more passes along the road, sticking my flashlight beam into the rows. Maybe I knocked her back into the corn. After that last pass, I stop the car to look underneath. Maybe I was dragging her body back and forth. God, I hope not.

I get down on my knees to point the flashlight under the car. I’m trembling so hard that I can hardly point the light. I’m so afraid of what I might see.

Nothing. Oh thank God. But I’m also looking past the car, into the cornfield at ground level. And then I see her feet. She’s running into the road again.

I kind of twist myself into a sitting position, and I'm pointing the flashlight up. She runs through the hood of my car. I said through, Maggie, like it wasn’t there. She stops right in front of me for a second and looks right into my eyes.

She couldn’t be more than sixteen. She’s blonde, wearing a belly-top and one of those Paris Hilton miniskirts. She’s dirty and sweating. She looks exhausted and scared.

Then her eyes dart to the side and she starts running across the road into the next cornfield. Maybe ten seconds later, something else comes out of the corn.

At first, I thought it was a dog or a deer. But it wasn’t just one something. It was lots of somethings, lurching, jumping, running and maybe even flying out of the corn.

It goes right through my car. At least part of it did. Or some of it. The rest goes over, or around. Something brushes right past me, and chills me to the bone. I never got a good look, but whatever was going past me was evil.

Evil embodied. If it even was a body. I told you it chilled me to the bone. I mean that literally. I could see my breath.

I have never been more scared in my life. The thing flows into the field, after the girl. I crawl back into the car and roll up the window. Then I just sit there, staring down Coop Road.

Maybe twenty minutes later the whole scene repeated. This time, the girl ran right in front of my car and never even glanced my way. She was pumping her arms and stepping high. The evil thing was only like three seconds behind. I still couldn’t get a good look. Maybe I didn’t want a good look.

I was scared, but that girl look more scared than me. I sat in the car waiting for for the chase to repeat its strange loop. And it did.

This time the girl burst out of the corn at a dead run. Full sprint and headlong into the corn. The thing was at her heels. I pressed the horn.

When the horn blared, the thing stopped right in front of my car. I could see black shapes gliding and slithering, becoming one and at the same time flowing into a dozen. Not human. Not animal.

It started moving towards me. I threw the car into reverse and hit the gas. It started running towards me, down the road. I spun the car around and drove like crazy. I outpaced the evil thing, but I know it kept coming. I know it.

That was an hour ago. Maggie, I don’t know how much space I put between me and it, but I gotta go. Now.

I think that I might have given that poor girl a chance. Or her soul a chance. I don’t know what I saw out there, but I know that there’s an evil thing coming after me. After I go, close your doors and windows, and don’t make any noise. If you feel something cold slip past you, just let it be.

Goodbye, Maggie.

A crisp, heavy silence hung over the old farmyard. Beyond the fields now made up of weeds and wild brambles, the grey shells of long-abandoned sheds stood shoulder to shoulder in the milky moonlight. Confident that he was alone, the young man darted towards the fence and over it as quietly as he could manage.

It had been seven years since Lian’s last visit to this place that he had once called home.

So much had changed—and yet the scene was horribly, vividly familiar. Long-buried memories drifted through Lian’s mind. Things he had tried to forget; things he believed he had forgotten, until now. Everything was still the same. His absence from this place had changed nothing. It was still his fault.

Involuntarily, his eyes darted to a spot about three feet away from the shed door: the place where his young sister had fallen for the last time. He had been fourteen years old, and she seven. It had been the end of a busy summer’s day and the fields had shone like gold in the sunset light.

“Lian! Dad says dinner will be ready soon!”

The younger Lian had shuddered at the sound of her childish voice. He didn’t want dinner. He wanted to stay in the shed, where he felt protected. His parents had wanted nothing more than a daughter, and since the day Marie was born, he had been second best; a constant disappointment. Nothing he ever did was good enough. He knew it wasn’t really her fault, but at fourteen, he still hated her for it.

“You go on back home, Marie. I’m going to stay here for a while.”

“Fine, but you had better hurry up! You don’t want it to get cold, do you?”

For a moment longer his eyes lingered on the sinking sun. Then he turned sullenly towards the door. Before he could pull it open, a thin, high scream had filled the air. Seized with sudden panic, the young Lian had leapt out into the field—but of his sister, there was no sign.

“Marie!” he cried. “Marie, where are you?”

“Help me… Lian, I can’t breath…”

Then he saw it—pulsating darkly on the ground. It looked like the antithesis of light, like hatred incarnate—and it had a death grip on his little sister. He stood there frozen in his terror, watching the life drain from her face.

I caused this, he thought wildly. This is happening because I hated her… I hated her for being better than me.

So he turned and fled, past the houses and the shops and into the wild countryside, not daring to look back at the home he had forsaken.

That had been the end of his days on the farm, the end of his childhood and the end of Marie’s young life.

Lian, being a man of the future, was not fond of living in the past—especially not this part of it. If anyone from the village saw his face and recognized him, that was it: the end of his career, his marriage, and quite possibly his life. Even if they didn’t kill him outright they would call the police, and he felt sure there was plenty of evidence. He had known the risks from the moment he had left his house, had dwelled on it during the long train journey, and yet had never once been tempted to turn back. Some unquenchable desperation had led him to return—and he knew he could not leave until his business here was done.

A cloud passed over the moon and the shadows deepened. For a moment, Lian was certain he had seen something moving in the weeds by the shed at the far end. It moved fluently, effortlessly, like a serpent through water. He recoiled, holding his breath, trying desperately to restrict his movements. Then the moment passed, moonlight returned, and Lian allowed himself to relax. It was probably nothing more harmless than a grass snake. He was being stupid. Nothing existed here that could harm him. Not now.

He was within a few feet of his goal. The handle of the door had been wrenched out, leaving a splintered socket, and it stood slightly ajar. With a jolt, he realised he was standing in the exact place where his younger sister had fallen.

“Lian.”

It was a voice that had spoken to him in dreams and memories. It was, unmistakeably, the voice of the child that had died seven years ago.

“I…” What were you supposed to say to the spirit of someone whose death you were responsible for?

“I hated you,” Lian said softly. Tears began to tumble down his cheeks now and he made no attempt to hold them back. “I hated you… and I am so sorry.”

“I know.” A cold wind rattled through the branches, chilling him to the bone. “I forgive you.”

From room to room she roamed. Her long gown disturbed the soot covered hallway as she entered each room and then returned once again to the hallway.

They say when they moved her body…

“Hey, c’mon Bobby, you’re not going to tell me they found her children under her are you!?”

“No, I’m not, because they didn’t. My Uncle Tom told me that what they found were the twin’s teddy bears.”

“So where were the kids Bobby? Huh?”

“Oh geez, George, the kids were safe and sound outside with their dad.”

“What? She died, and they were all safe?”

“Yeah, sucks doesn’t it!”

“You’re lying aren’t you!?”

“No, George, honest, I’m not! My Uncle Tom said that the husband and wife had gotten into a fight that night and he was sleeping on the couch downstairs when the fire broke out. He ran up and grabbed the kids and got out of the house.”

“So why didn’t he get his wife Bobby?”

“Didn’t you hear me George? I told you they’d had a fight, he was still angry with her! My Uncle even says that they thought the husband might have started the fire.”

“This is the house Bobby? But it looks like any other house!”

“Yeah it does, my Uncle said the husband had it rebuilt.”

“So they still live here? The husband and the twins?”

“Naaaaaa George, the husband, according to my Uncle committed suicide about six months after they moved back in it. He said that the twins went to live with their mom’s sister after that and that the house has been empty since then. But my Uncle said that he thinks the husband was murdered.”

“Murdered? Now you are pulling my leg Bobby!”

“No, he said that when they found him, he was in the bathroom off the nursery and he was burnt from head to toe.”

“The house is still standing Bobby.”

“Yeah, I know, creepy isn’t it.”

“So why are we standing out here?”

“Because according to my Uncle, if you watch the upstairs nursery window, you can see her setting him on fire.”

The sign at the city limits said two things that I found very strange. For one, it said, “WELCOME,” which was odd, since I never heard anyone say, “welcome,” while I was there. Another thing it said was, “POPULATION: 34,562,” which I suppose was both totally wrong and surprisingly accurate at the same time.

I’m not sure why I kept driving forward, even though I knew I had missed the turn to get home. Maybe there was something inside that strange city that was pulling me in. Whatever it was, I couldn’t see it. There was a thick fogbank surrounding the place. Driving through it was like cutting through a cloud in an airplane. All I could see through the windows was a cold, enigmatic gray that seemed to seep right through the windows and pull the color off everything inside the car.

Once I cleared the fog, the city was beautiful, but oddly quiet. There were quaint little coffee shops and outdoor cafes that still smelled a tiny bit like freshly roasted beans, if you took a deep enough breath. There were bakeries with smiling wooden characters welcoming in their patrons, and big glass cases filled with pastries, which looked nice even though they were probably as hard as concrete. All the apartment buildings were clean and had little window boxes on every window. The streets were clean, too, the sidewalks looked so well kept I figured I could safely eat off them. Yet, it just didn’t seem right somehow. It was the people.

It took me a while to find them, but when I did I nearly fainted. They looked like statues carved out of mist. They were so intricately detailed I could see everything from the scratches on their shoes to the tired rings under their eyes. They obviously weren't normal people. They were able to walk right through me, and when I talked to them I couldn’t get any sort of reply. It wasn’t until one of them stopped and glared wearily at me while moving his lips that I realized they couldn’t talk, or at least they couldn't be heard.

I watched these poor souls for an entire day. I watched them pass through the doors of bakeries and try in vain to pick up the baked goods they so dearly craved. I watched them sit in their cafes and stare longingly at their full cups. Occasionally, one would try to pick theirs up, only to watch their hand drift right through the handle. At night, I followed a few of them home and watched them lay on their beds and close their eyes. I could tell they weren’t sleeping, though. Their lips were still curled and their brows were still furrowed from pain and fatigue; it was the sort of expression you see on somebody's face just before they start crying. At first it was all just a spectacle to me, but the next morning I soon decided it was time to go home.

I was just leaning on a wall, pondering everything I’d seen, when across the street I saw two people about to cross paths on the sidewalk. One was a man; the other was a woman, and they where both so young and pretty. They stopped abruptly when they saw each other. They just stared at each other for a while, and I wondered why. Then it hit me: they were lovers. It wasn’t so much the fact that they recognized each other, it wasn’t so much the rings on their fingers, it was their eyes. Their pupils twinkled with deep-felt admiration and desire . . . unlike any I’d seen before, but their eyelids quivered in agony. They walked towards each other slowly, and suddenly launched forward with wide spread arms, but there was no embrace. They came close once more, and puckered their lips and leaned into each other, but there was no kiss. Then they pulled back and shook their heads. They must’ve realized it wasn’t going to work, because after that they just walked right through each other and went solemnly on their own paths.

I walked quickly back to my car. I was tired of the place and my cheeks were stinging from the cold tears.

When I got home, I laid down in the grass in the park outside my apartment, and took a deep breath of the warm fresh air. I counted the colors of the flowers in the window boxes. I smelled the fresh coffees and pastries that people were enjoying all around me. I listened to the kids laughing over by the swing set. It was then that I realized how much my hometown was like that strange, silent city, and what made it so different. It was the people. Here, they’re still alive . . . and I’m grateful for that.

I still feel Stephen’s presence when I am in the places where our lives intertwined with an intensity that burned beyond the moment, beyond even life itself, beyond death.

                                                        ###

Here, in Grimmer Cove at the Pit Stop Diner where, on his way from one city of bright lights to the next, Stephen swept me up from the boredom of my sheltered, uneventful existence into the wild, unpredictable drama of his life. And here in this booth, where I served him coffee, I can almost smell his cologne. Here, where he complimented me on my beautiful smile, and I fell in love with his beautiful smile. Where he jokingly offered to show me “The Time of my Life” and I half-jokingly accepted. Here, where twenty-five minutes before my shift ended, I left with him and never came back for ten years.

                                                        ###

Here, in Los Angeles, where Stephen moved with ease among people who, to me, had only ever been moving pictures on a screen, photographs in a newspaper or glossy magazine. Where life was a tide of incredible highs and lows. And here, outside RJ’s Jazz and Blues Club, dark now, where Stephen used to perform twice a week, I can faintly hear the sensual, dulcet tones of his saxophone oozing through the boarded-up doors and windows. Tunes he wrote for me.

                                                        ###

Here, in Paris, where he taught me to appreciate the art of the old masters, from where we soaked up centuries of European history and where he introduced me to the magnificent food for which the French are so famous. And here in this hotel room high above the Seine I can almost taste the garlic and cigarette smoke that mingled on his breath as we made endless love on hot summer nights.

                                                        ###

Here, in Kenya, where he revealed to me the world as it had been before history. Where we drifted in a hot air balloon over vast oceans of migrating wildlife, where I discovered a passion for the Dark Continent. And here, in this luxury cabin at the Umgweni Reserve, I now see a shadowy outline of Stephen, as he had appeared before me that afternoon, naked and ashamed, when I returned early from shopping in the village to find him making love to a young African girl.

                                                        ###

Back here again, in Grimmer Cove, where I ran to be with my dying mother, and to be away from him. Where he followed me begging for forgiveness I could not give. And here, on the cliffs, where I can almost feel again his desperate touch on my arm, the way it felt when he tried to hold onto me, but could not. Here, where I tore free of his grasp and threw myself down into the grinding cauldron of jagged rocks and crushing waves.

                                      ---~~~==o0O0o==~~~---

Now, there's a question you don’t expect to hear, unless it’s dripping with sarcasm. But the twelve-, maybe thirteen-year old kid who sat down on the park bench next to me--neat haircut framing a genuinely curious expression--seemed deadly serious (if you'll pardon the pun). The unexpectedness of the question for me, though, was not so much a case of: “How could anyone mistake me for dead?" but rather: "I've been dead for close on three years, and now it turns out someone can actually see me!"

"Well, are you?"

"Do I look dead?"

"No, mister. It's just that, well, you got the same feel about you my gramps has when I talk to him. He died when I was eight.”

"What do you mean, 'feel'?"

"I dunno. It's just, like, well … it's like, a feeling I get when I look at you. Same feeling I get with gramps, ‘cept we don’t talk much anymore. He’s getting very ‘faint’ now. Says he may be moving on soon.”

Maybe this kid could help me move on!

"Sure, kid. I'm dead. Been dead since nine-eleven."

"Wow! Were you in one of the towers? Gramps told me all about that. A lot of people died there. He knows some of them."

"No. I was on Flight 93."

"So you crashed into one of the a towers!"

"No. Flight 93’s the one that went down in Pennsylvania, but I was dead before it crashed."

The kid was silent for a couple of seconds.

"How?" he asked quietly.

"Food poisoning." I said. "You ever try eating United Airlines food?"

The kid's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped, until I couldn't hold it in any longer. We both laughed out loud. Damn! It was good to laugh like that. We ‘departed’ don't find much to laugh about among ourselves. Those of us who still have issues to resolve before we can move on.

"So really, how did you die, mister?"

"Well kid, I could tell you I died in the fight to stop the hijackers using the plane as a guided missile, and that would be the truth, in fact, if not in spirit."

He cracked a weak smile at my weak pun.

"Fact is, a couple of quarter-back types and a bunch of the other passengers decided to try to take out the hijackers and I tried to stop them.”

“Didn’t you know they planned to crash into the White House?”

“The Capitol, kid. But no, I never got to make a phone call for myself so all the crazy talk among the passengers… the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, I though it was just hysteria. I really believed our best chance to survive was to let the Arabs take the plane wherever they wanted. The others wouldn’t listen, so when they shouted, “Let’s roll!” I stood up and tried to stop them. A dozen heroes charging down the aisle with a service trolley; I never had a chance. The trolley flipped over as it knocked me down, crushed my head. They had to push it the last few yards upside down and it didn’t have enough momentum to break open the cockpit door. If I hadn’t gotten in their way… “

“So… do you think that’s why you’re still here?”

“Who knows how things might have turned out… The pilot was still alive. If they’d just gotten though the cockpit door…

“And now they’ve nominated the whole bunch of us for Congressional Gold Medals. If they ever award them… well, how can I move on if I get such undeserved recognition?”

“So… can I do something?”

“Kid, I don’t know what you can say or who will listen but if you can find any way to get my name off that list… The Gold Medal can’t be awarded ‘til we’ve been dead five years so we have some time. Maybe you could start with my mother. She believes in the afterlife. Never misses a chance to watch that fraud, John Edward, on ‘Crossing Over’. She wouldn’t want me stuck here.”

Just then a woman shouted from across the park.

“Sorry mister, I have to go. Quick, how do I contact her?”

“Got a pen?”

                                                * * * * * *

Well, that was two years ago. I never saw the kid again. More than five years since nine-eleven, and they’re saying Congressman Shuster’s bill to award Congressional Gold Medals to the passengers and crew of Flight 93 is close to getting the sponsorship it needs in the House. Mother’s been in the news too; the crazy lady who spent the last two years lobbying to get her son’s name off the list of nominees. Maybe she’s destined to succeed; I’ve been feeling a bit ‘faint’ lately.

Children see the world in a whole different light than adults. They see past our hang-ups, our flaws, our compulsive behavior and our use of big words. They see the world in an innocent, safe light. Their world is a place where a simple hug or even a kiss on a booboo sets the world straight again. Some children have a wonderful sense of humor, even after death. This is an odd statement I know but let me tell you a little story to help explain my point.

I’m an aquarist by trade. For those who don’t know what an aquarist is, or does for that matter, I will put it into a little kid’s terms… I take care of fish or better yet, I’m an underwater zookeeper. All aquarists, rather at home or someone like me who gets paid, hates to have fingerprints on their aquarium windows. I am no exception to this but I am a little bit more tolerant than most of my fellow aquarists. I know kids will be kids and they can’t help but put their hands onto a window they are looking through to touch the pretty fish as it swims by.

This all started when I would clean my aquarium windows only to come back a few minuets later to find little finger prints one them. So, out would come the glass cleaner again. During the summer months when we have a lot of park guests in and out of our aquariums at all hours of the day the fingerprints didn’t bother me. But, when winter came and I should have been the only one in the aquarium, I was still finding little fingerprints on the aquarium glass. This did bother me-- In the beginning that it is. As I paid more and more attention to which one of my aquariums had the little finger prints, I found it was really just one aquarium and no matter how many times I cleaned it I would have finger prints.

One morning I decided I would clean the window in question and then sit and watch the window. Well, I cleaned the glass really well and then sat on the counter and watched. All of a sudden, I felt as if I was not really alone in the lab and I felt cold. As I sat there looking around to see if someone had come into the lab, I noticed little finger prints starting to show up on the aquarium window! It was then heard a little giggle. I got up off the counter, looked at what had been a totally clean aquarium window and found that it was now covered in little finger prints! So, I got the glass cleaner out again and started to clean the window. No sooner was I done with the front window, than little finger prints started to show up at the opposite end from me!

I stood there dumbfounded. I couldn’t really believe what I was seeing! Then I felt cold and heard a faint little giggle and when I looked down at the section of window I had just cleaned it too had little prints on it!

I sat back up on the counter to think. As I watched the fish swimming in the aquarium, I still had the feel I was not alone in the lab and that I was even being watched. I was a little startled when the one of the lab doors opened up and some other zoo staff came in. They gave me a funny little look but I just smiled and got up off the counter and went to work.

I asked a few of the senior staff members and they just laughed. One finally told me about a person who left ten years back and how she used to swear that there was a ghost that would follow her around. He looked at me and asked me if I had seen anything? I smiled and laughed and just said “no”.

I decided I would keep all this to myself but I did tell my new little friend that he or she could play all they wanted. I didn’t mind. I told them I was not going anywhere anytime soon and so they could look into my aquariums all they wanted.

I still find fingerprints on the aquariums and that’s ok. I can’t think of a morning yet when I ‘m not greeted with the warm soft laughter of a child. I doubt I will ever know why this one chooses to haunt my lab but I will always make sure there are lots of pretty fish for them to watch in my aquariums.

Jim didn’t believe in ghosts. So he didn’t know why he was here in the cemetery watching the sun set in brief splendour between the grey rain clouds and the misty horizon.

It was the eve of the day when it would be exactly a year that death had separated Jim and his beloved Rose He missed her. Jim was hoping that on this day he might see her again. He stood beside the gravestone and his imagination took him back.

They had just bought a new house. Rose’s excitement was only tempered by the fact that their house looked like every other house on their block. Jim joked about coming home to the wrong house. He promised to paint the garage door hot pink. She laughed, but there was still that little line of discontent on her face. So he had called some friends. Some had come to help pack, some went with him when he snuck out to and gone to this place and that. She hid her irritation and joked when he got home. But when the moving van pulled up to the house and she saw the huge garden of roses in front of the house… He would never forget the look of joy on her face.

He hoped that she hadn’t forgotten either. So, here he was, in the cemetery, watching the sun set. Watching for his Rose. A year was a long time. Death was cruel, but time was crueler. It eased the pain. It made people forget. But it couldn’t make ghosts fade.

The sun sank and the world became black and white and grey. Ghosts might have walked the night, but he didn’t fear them. They were, like Rose, someone’s beloved. The moon rose full and white. Tendrils of mist wandered aimlessly down the rows of stone. Jim barely noticed. He was watching for the woman who had made him feel complete. She always knew what to say, what to do.

The garden grew with their house. Rose tended his gift. Every time he came home to see her pruning or weeding, he remembered the joy. She became legendary for her roses. One day he came home to find a new rose bush in the center of the garden. She took his hand and led him to it.

“This is yours.” She said. “It is called the James Mason. But I will just call it Jim.”

There in the moonlit graveyard Jim could still feel the shape of that joy on his face.

The moon set in its turn, and Jim began to feel doubt rising like dark mist in his heart. Maybe death was too large a gulf - maybe a year was too long a time. Maybe Rose had torn the garden from her heart. Maybe she wouldn’t come. The what if’s and maybe’s haunted Jim through the darkest of the night.

He tried not to, but he remembered the day that death separated them. He could only recall the details. - the sound of her voice screaming his name, then fading to a whisper, then falling silent. He remembered the sirens and lights, the tears and the pain of not wanting to let her go. He remembered the broken rose bush in the center of the garden with its huge crimson flowers strewn on the ground. He felt the shape of his grief tearing at him.

Jim hung his head as it started to rain. The air slowly lightened as the sun rose behind the clouds, but the whole world was grey. She would not come. She hated the rain. He had wasted his time waiting here hoping to see her just one more time.

Just as he turned to leave he saw a spot of bright red. It slowly approached and he could see the shape of a woman carrying a bunch of roses. They were immense crimson blooms. Even in the rain he could smell their sweet scent. She came to a stop by the gravestone and looked right past him. Death played its last cruel trick. She could not see him.

“I brought you some roses. Jim. They are from your rosebush. I miss you so much.”

Raindrops ran like tears across the surface of the stone.

“Jim Mason – Beloved Husband” It read. Rose leaned over and put the flowers on the grave.

“I’ll always love you, Jim.” He tried to touch her face, but his hand passed through her. Her tears mixed with the rain. He imagined he could feel them on his fingertips.

“Don’t cry.” He said. “I’m here.”

The sun came out for a brief glorious moment, and Rose imagined that she felt the warmth of Jim’s hand on her cheek.

The not quite full moon illuminated the desert ravine where two men were burying a bag of money. Each twisted and turned to keep the other in view while they dug the hole. Finally, the one named Joe pulled himself out of the hole and walked over to the large bag filled with the money they had stolen from an armoured truck. He picked up the bag with a grunt and carried it over to the hole. With an evil grin Joe pitched the bag at Tom, who was still in the hole watching suspiciously. The second man dropped his shovel to catch the bag, and as he did, Joe shot him.

“You should be happy.” Joe said, laughing. “I am giving you all the money, at least for now.”

The moon was down by the time he had finished burying money and partner, but Joe whistled as he picked up the shovels and walked away to his car.

******

The moon was up again another night in that same ravine. About a year had passed and Joe figured it was safe to recover his money. He whistled as he dug into the sandy soil. It had been hard to go a whole year without the money in the bag, but this coming year would make up for it. He let daydreams about how he was going to spend the money ease the work of digging. Too bad that Tom just hadn’t understood that the money was just enough to keep one man comfortable. If they had split it, Joe would have still needed to work. The idea gave him the shudders. He hadn’t much liked Tom, so it was no great loss.

The work of shoveling was bringing up a sweat that felt cold in the chill desert night. Joe shivered, but the soft thud of shovel on a bag of money warmed him quickly. He jumped into the hole and carefully pushed the dirt from the bag. He gripped the straps and lifted. It didn’t budge. Joe scraped more soil from around the bag and hoisted it again. It still wouldn’t move.

He knelt down to peer more closely at the bag. A skeletal hand was clutching the bag.

“You always were a greedy dog, Tom. I’m glad I shot you. You would have done me if I turned my back.” He sneered. “You were just too slow.”

He kicked at the bony fingers, and tried again to heave the money out of the hole. No luck. Swearing under his breath Joe tried to jump out of the hole. Something caught at his foot and pulled him back. Shouting and cursing, Joe kicked at the hand that had fastened onto his foot. He bumped hard into the side of the hole and sand poured down burying him to his knees.

Joe screamed and reached for the shovel. Fighting the heavy sand he scrabbled and stretched. He got a hand on the shovel and pulled it to him.

“You’re in for it now, you dog’s son.”

Joe snarled and shoveled madly around his legs. He cut himself several times, but barely noticed. He did notice when he stabbed at a hand and nearly cut his foot in two. The desert echoed with his curses, but there was nothing there to listen. Throwing the shovel down Joe grabbed hold of the bag of money and once more tried to lift it free of the ground. This time it moved easily and Joe tossed it well away from the hole. When he tried to follow he felt the grip of a dead hand on his shattered foot. He howled and pushed at the dirt with his hands. Gripping dead Tom’s hand, Joe bent a finger back to force it to let go. He broke first one finger than another.

“I’ll tear you apart bone by bone you mongrel dog.” Joe laughed hysterically. “I’ll kill you all over again.”

Suddenly the hand moved its grip from foot to Joe’s wrist. When he snatched at the iron grip with his other hand that one was captured too. Joe struggled and pulled but he couldn’t break their clasp. Then they started pulling him down. Joe fought and screamed. He foamed at the mouth in his rage, but he was inexorably drawn farther into the ground.

His hands disappear beneath the soil, then his wrists and elbows. Joe was forced to his knees, whimpering now. Soon his arms were buried as far as his shoulders. He lifted his head to scream one more prayer, or curse, but the sand filled his mouth and silenced him forever.