5 - Misplace

5 – Misplace

The clouds were gathering but it was neither warm nor chilly, just pleasant outside with a slight breeze in the air. As it was Autumn, most of the leaves were missing leaves, they just lay in the ground to be crumpled up. It had turned 5pm and the sun was just setting, crowds of children appeared from nearby streets disturbing leaves as they rushed on by.

Halloween had turned into a night of parties and confectionary, children dressed as miniature witches, teenagers hammering down doors often drunk and although Halloween had turned into a commercialised holiday the dead buried down below the ground relished in the night when the gap between themselves and the living grew stronger together.

It was as though he had been a woken from a restful sleep. He felt energised and ready to start the Halloween night walking among the living. He was disappointed to see that this day had turned into what it had over the years he had been dead but even so, it was great just to smell fresh air.

The smell down there was putrid and the embarrassing thing was, it was himself thar smelt so bad. Years of dirt covered his weathered clothes. His once black and white suit now brown and stained and slightly moth bitten.

He rose from his sleeping state and started pulling at the dirt inside his resting place. The dirt crumbled down, collapsing by him. He pulled himself up scratching at the dirt in front of him and started to dig until the light of nearby streetlights came into view.

Hoisting himself up, he perched for a moment on the side of the grave, his legs dangling. Behind him his tombstone read:

In Memory of Dennis Mc Kee,

4/71885 – 23/11/1947

A loving husband and Father to his son

He smiled to himself. He knew his son now had grandchildren, but they rarely visited as his son was only a baby when he died. He tried not to dwell on death and tried to think of the now, the day that rolled around every year which ironically celebrated death.

Something felt different. It wasn’t that around him, but he didn’t feel quite right, he could hear, but only faintly as if he had been swimming in the lake. As he grabbed hold of his right side, there was no ear attached, he moved over to the left in panic and luckily his left ear was still attached but he worried about the lost ear.

He started digging where he slept, hunting in all the dirt mounds for an ear like shape.

“What are you doing Dennis?”

He twisted his head completely back so that his face was now aligning his back, there stood one of the other ghosts that died a few years later than he did. A fat man, chubby but humbling.

“My ear...” He span around digging like a dog looking for a bone. “I can’t find my right ear.”

“Oh dear, I’m lucky, no body parts have fallen off yet.”

“I don’t know where its gone.”

“Well, I’m off, I hope you have luck finding your ear!”

He stopped; his body stuck inside the mound of dirt. Sighing to himself, he made his way out of the grave and started walking towards a gravestone very special to him.

A small stone lay underneath an old oak tree, once just a little sapling. A bone statue stood on top of the grave which read:

Sally, you will be missed.

30/5/1893 – 2/2/1900

The mound of dirt underneath had not been disturbed so with a little tap Dennis called out to her as she burst through the ground, her tail wagging, her bony body jumping up and down, licking his rotted corpse.

“How have you been missy? I’ve missed you.”

She barked, standing on two legs waiting to be petted.

“Now, I need you to help me find something...”

It was a risk to his hearing but he could sew it back on, with a mighty tug he pulled his left ear from his skull placing it in his blazer pocket, luckily no moths had nibbled there way inside.

The world suddenly turned silent. He could see other corpses walking around the graveyard and the distant colours of children in costumes but having no ears was going to be very tricky. He thanked his dog that she would guide him.

He pulled his ear out and handed it to Sally, for a nasty moment he worried she may eat his last ear but then soon realising that the dead cannot eat, it wouldn’t be an issue.

fortunately, she wasn’t interested. The determination on her face showed that finding this ear was her only mission.

Using her nose, she sniffed low on the ground, high on the trees. It seemed as if they had walked around the graveyard three times when high above a tapping noise.

A lone squirrel tucking into nuts it had found, except that wasn’t a nut. When Dennis was alive, he would walk around forests and parks soaking in wildlife, even as a corpse his sight could rival that of a child.

“That’s my ear!”

Sally bounded up the tree trunk like a possessed creature growling as the squirrel stood high on a branch quivering, running off in terror. Sally grabbed the ear in her mouth and swallowed.

His heart sunk until something floppy hit his corpse head falling into his palms.

“My ear!”

Sally had now bounded back down the tree trunk where Dennis patted her, scratching her belly as she rolled over on the ground.

“You clever girl.”