Ghosts
Title: Ghosts
Author's name: Hopie
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimers: None
Fandom: None
Word Count: 746
Summary: When the graveyard is closed, the ghosts come out to play.
Notes: Written for prompt 2, and meant to be way better than it is now. I pictured it a bit funnier, but it turned out more sad and pathetic.
The gates of the cemetery snick shut, and the gravedigger waves goodbye to his dimwitted help. The lantern bobs for less than a mile, and is swallowed up by the fog.
The ghosts come out to play.
Three, four, five, six of them sit on the graveyard stones, wet and obscene from dew, beneath the silvery light of the moon, surrounded by the silvery light of the fog, part and parcel with the pattern of the world. If some stupid kid stumbles past later to do a bit of vandalism, they won't stick out.
May is balanced on a cross, legs folded like a proper lady, with a rotting fan in her hand; there are two missing fingers on that hand, from an accident at the mills. Her smile shows rotted teeth and vibrant, purple tongue, to go with the vibrant purple bruises around a fragile neck. A jewel the size of a pear sits against her thrust-up bosom; it's the reason her family are trying to find her grave.
"No respect, these young ones," she said, and the beauty spot at the side of her mouth wobbled with speech, "not even flowers first."
The man opposite her is standing up in front of his home, hip rested against the curved top. A lopsided army hat bobbed with his understanding nod, and the handlebar moustache, which has also gone out of fashion, lifted with his sympathetic smile. "I know, my dear. It's not bad enough that we're dead, but to be forgotten..." He shook his head, and one of the hat's three points tip forward over one eye.
A raven cleaned its feathers on Old Maureen's grave, which is crumbling and ancient and half-covered by weeds. Maureen will not be coming tonight, nor again.
"Shameful," said a third ghost, dressed up like a pirate - he wasn't. He'd died during a fancy dress party, and people had thought it was a stunt until someone not drunk to the eyeballs had noticed. "Shameful. My mother used to visit every day, and she's not come once this time."
Maureen's silence mocked all three of them - the other three are not feeling so well, and quickly fading, too. The fog might take them tonight, if they are lucky, or perhaps they will be dragged into a few more weeks, and then they will go.
Death is not frightening, for there is something after it. It's what comes after that that is so scary.
Mind you, there's not much to do with the first option. Star in a few horror movies. Haunt some houses. Watch the world change. Moan about the world changing. Take up refuge in a hole-in-the-wall town. Be memorable.
May flicked her fan at the Major, and frightened away a hovering moth, "How much do you have left?"
"A year more; possibly less." The Major's smile is well-practiced, and he pressed a white-gloved hand to the bronze - maybe - buttons on the coat. "If I am lucky, someone will think I'm a war hero, and keep me here."
The third ghost snorted, a foul and uncouth sound that accurately sums up how all three feel: helpless.
"I'm not scared," the third ghost - Gottfried, a musician from Vienna - is proud to announce, and punctuates the sentence by pushing himself off the stone he rests upon, which reads: 'Here lies Gottfried after the Fat Lady sung'. "If it happens, it happens."
"And it will happen," May snapped the fan closed and stared down moodily at her own grave, smooth and expensive and clearly maintained, but not by family hands, "it will happen, some day. To all of us."
"What all, dear?" the Major asked, gentle and fatherly, "we are the only ones left here. All the others have gone. We are the last."
May's lower lip trembled, and if she were capable of tears, she would have cried.
The Major took a pipe from the topmost pocket of his coat, and stuck it between his lips. It flares on its own, mimicking how it used to be. No smoke comes out.
The third ghost pulled his violin out of the air, and laid it against his shoulder, and drew the bow across the taut strings - the music is credited to cicadas and crickets by a passing couple, and Gottfried's memory wobbles.
May slid down from her stone to dance with the daisies, spinning and spinning and spinning.
In the morning, they are all back, waiting, waiting, but nobody ever comes.
Author's name: Hopie
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Disclaimers: None
Fandom: None
Word Count: 746
Summary: When the graveyard is closed, the ghosts come out to play.
Notes: Written for prompt 2, and meant to be way better than it is now. I pictured it a bit funnier, but it turned out more sad and pathetic.
The gates of the cemetery snick shut, and the gravedigger waves goodbye to his dimwitted help. The lantern bobs for less than a mile, and is swallowed up by the fog.
The ghosts come out to play.
Three, four, five, six of them sit on the graveyard stones, wet and obscene from dew, beneath the silvery light of the moon, surrounded by the silvery light of the fog, part and parcel with the pattern of the world. If some stupid kid stumbles past later to do a bit of vandalism, they won't stick out.
May is balanced on a cross, legs folded like a proper lady, with a rotting fan in her hand; there are two missing fingers on that hand, from an accident at the mills. Her smile shows rotted teeth and vibrant, purple tongue, to go with the vibrant purple bruises around a fragile neck. A jewel the size of a pear sits against her thrust-up bosom; it's the reason her family are trying to find her grave.
"No respect, these young ones," she said, and the beauty spot at the side of her mouth wobbled with speech, "not even flowers first."
The man opposite her is standing up in front of his home, hip rested against the curved top. A lopsided army hat bobbed with his understanding nod, and the handlebar moustache, which has also gone out of fashion, lifted with his sympathetic smile. "I know, my dear. It's not bad enough that we're dead, but to be forgotten..." He shook his head, and one of the hat's three points tip forward over one eye.
A raven cleaned its feathers on Old Maureen's grave, which is crumbling and ancient and half-covered by weeds. Maureen will not be coming tonight, nor again.
"Shameful," said a third ghost, dressed up like a pirate - he wasn't. He'd died during a fancy dress party, and people had thought it was a stunt until someone not drunk to the eyeballs had noticed. "Shameful. My mother used to visit every day, and she's not come once this time."
Maureen's silence mocked all three of them - the other three are not feeling so well, and quickly fading, too. The fog might take them tonight, if they are lucky, or perhaps they will be dragged into a few more weeks, and then they will go.
Death is not frightening, for there is something after it. It's what comes after that that is so scary.
Mind you, there's not much to do with the first option. Star in a few horror movies. Haunt some houses. Watch the world change. Moan about the world changing. Take up refuge in a hole-in-the-wall town. Be memorable.
May flicked her fan at the Major, and frightened away a hovering moth, "How much do you have left?"
"A year more; possibly less." The Major's smile is well-practiced, and he pressed a white-gloved hand to the bronze - maybe - buttons on the coat. "If I am lucky, someone will think I'm a war hero, and keep me here."
The third ghost snorted, a foul and uncouth sound that accurately sums up how all three feel: helpless.
"I'm not scared," the third ghost - Gottfried, a musician from Vienna - is proud to announce, and punctuates the sentence by pushing himself off the stone he rests upon, which reads: 'Here lies Gottfried after the Fat Lady sung'. "If it happens, it happens."
"And it will happen," May snapped the fan closed and stared down moodily at her own grave, smooth and expensive and clearly maintained, but not by family hands, "it will happen, some day. To all of us."
"What all, dear?" the Major asked, gentle and fatherly, "we are the only ones left here. All the others have gone. We are the last."
May's lower lip trembled, and if she were capable of tears, she would have cried.
The Major took a pipe from the topmost pocket of his coat, and stuck it between his lips. It flares on its own, mimicking how it used to be. No smoke comes out.
The third ghost pulled his violin out of the air, and laid it against his shoulder, and drew the bow across the taut strings - the music is credited to cicadas and crickets by a passing couple, and Gottfried's memory wobbles.
May slid down from her stone to dance with the daisies, spinning and spinning and spinning.
In the morning, they are all back, waiting, waiting, but nobody ever comes.