Lens of Mercies

The Autumn wind has a way of handshaking a body when it blows in just the right way; lifting tufts of long hair and giving the impression that playful ghosts are afoot. Vincent shook off the chill from his shoulders and readjusted his suit jacket and buttoned it. He gave one last look at the freshly covered grave of a man, an uncle, he hardly knew. He felt guilty. He shouldn’t though, he told himself, he drove the distance to get here, didn’t he, so what if he was late to the funeral, so what if he never wrote back to the letters he sent: who writes letters anyway; only people like his uncle. He brought the last letter sent with him, just in case, he thought. He pulled the letter out now from his breast pocket. It was uncharacteristically short:

“A blank page is like your life: terrifying and full of an endless possibility. What’s worse than that? What’s better than that? All the difference can be made if you be the author instead of a character. Vinny, I’m dying. There’s no ifs about it. Luckier than many, I have time enough to write a good ending and, in doing this, I want you to have the cashier’s check for $20,000 that I sent alongside this letter. Hopefully, you will use it well and not be used by it.”

He could feel the roil of deep resentment turn inside of him again as he looked at the check; he couldn’t straighten it into what he knew should be gratitude. He wasn’t sure what to do next, like everything else in his life, and so with an awkward grin he bowed a slight thanks and walked back toward the car. The sun was falling low into the sky and the light cut through the ancient cemetery trees in fragmented ways and fell upon select stones. The leaves themselves detached sparsely from the dying canopy above and fell in a lazy way across his distant view. Something about this made him keep walking. He walked past the car and into the depths of the cemetery, centuries old, and found himself, as he drifted from realm to realm between the fragmented shadows, grazing his fingertips against the different graves, monuments, obelisks, stone gazebos, and statues as they rose and fell with the varied trees that encompassed the hilly terrain.

At the crest of a large hill he came full into the small warmth of the fading light and spotted at some distance a pair of statues that drew him in. Two large identical winged women that, with a downward grey gaze, rose above a grove of mediocre stones which were pushed into crooked angles and half-heaved out of the earth from the slow obdurate growth of the trees that surrounded them. As he made his way to the statues he could see the women were looking down upon a kneeling statue of the serpent tressed Medusa. In the sea of grey stone her eyes alone were black and staring at him as he approached. Her palms were up in offering, or pleading, and in them they held a little black book whose placement there was deliberate and was beheld in sharp contrast against all else. When he arrived, he was short of breath, he realized his pace had quickened him here, and before reaching the for the book, curled in his fingers alongside his breath and decided to slow down. He gave a look at the women above and their grey eyes ignored him as they fixed with an air of frozen rile onto the object below. He saw each woman was named, or branded, one “Love” and one “Wisdom”. He thought, with these eyes, only of all the ways in which each could carry a certain cruelty like the thorns below a rose. He turned to the Medusa and with thumb to tongue then used it to wipe clean the dirt from the black orbed eyes. With this some primordial sense made him aware of being made an object himself. It tickled his spine and he turned, peering around through the darkening distances of the cemetery, trying to see around trees and behind gravestones, but there was only emptiness; and slow falling zig-zagging leaves. The book itself he determined was not a recent placement as he could see in certain slants of light the reflection of one gossamer strand that anchored a spiderweb to the center of the soft flexible leather-like cover. He lifted the book, the web broke off sailing out in a soft breath of wind, and, feeling observed still, stuffed the treasure into his breast pocket. He hurried off toward the car, with hands shoved into his pants pockets, and the light fading fast.

By the time Vincent made it to the peak of the big hill he realized he had been turned around and the little light that peaked over from the horizon-covered sun was waning. Nothing came familiar to him and he groped at stones and trees as he pushed his way through and pulled himself forward. Arboreal wisps whipped into his face and unsteady steps in his dress shoes worked at his ankles. Almost in a run, aided by the descent of the hill, he clipped his toes against a fallen slab and tumbled face down against the gnarled roots of a great oak that were exposed like some giant’s knuckles surfacing curled up from under the dirt. At this he leapt up, stumbled, and ran even more with an absence of thought only to find himself more lost in the darkening wood, where in the corners of his eyes strange specters flicked and to his ears slight sounds echoed in the silences. He now ran wildly in differently directions with big steps and wide eyes searching out for his car in the shortening distances. He ran until he fell again with an unsteady step into a soft peaty dirt and he landed palms down into it. In a quiet moment here he realized it was his uncle’s grave. A nervous mirthful laugh overtook him the way a boiling kettle screams and he took a big squeeze with both hands of the soft earth.

He found the car easily. In the stale air inside the protective shell of aluminum and glass he wiped his hands off the best he could, took a deep breath, and noted his jacket buttons had broken off. He clicked on the little ceiling light with one finger and from his breast pocket produced the little black book. With great anticipation he opened it. Inside, highlighted under the small spotlight, was nothing. Just blank pages. He sat back into this, letting his head rest, and gave the slightest smile.