A Grave Converstion

A Grave Conversation

The scene is nearly idyllic. Fluffy clouds dot a deep blue sky while mountains stand in afar in all four directions. Shady Pines is a man-made oasis in the desert. Stately trees, some Oak, mostly Pine, dominate a square mile devoid of indigenous Mesquite, and Palo Verde, trees. Soft breezes play lightly through leaves and needles, whispering of peace and tranquility. Temperatures in three digits are not uncommon in areas between tree shadows. Underground temperatures are much cooler.

There is no light in the grave.

On a corner lot of this large cemetery in Arizona, a friend was just interred. If you hang around long enough after the ceremony, you might hear the following exchange.

“Hey, Lenny. We got a new neighbor.”

“Jesus, Phil, can’t a body ever get any rest around here.”

“Will you two pipe-down? People are trying to sleep here.”

Ulysses laughs at his own joke, every time.

“HA HA HA, not funny. Give it a break, Ulysses, that line hasn’t been funny for two centuries now.”

“Double standard, Lenny. My line is not funny but yours is? I don’t get it. What’s the difference? Seriously, tell me. We got plenty of time.”

“You’ve been asking the same question for decades. Just drop it, okay? Who’s the new kid on the block, Phil?”

Phil responds in his still thick Brooklyn accent. “What, d’ya think? I’m some-kind-a-mind-reader? Fa’ ‘rist’s sake? Lenny, we won’t know a thing about him until he tells us all the gory details of the life that brought him here.”

“How do you know he’s a he, Phil?”

“Frances, don’t start with that gender identity stuff again, okay?”

“Okay, okay, okay Phil. Just saying you jump to conclusions all the time. Our new neighbor might be gay or lesbian or trans or queer or intersex or asexual.”

“Or straight. Shh. Listen. The new guy, er person, is coming to.”

“What the fucking fuck is this? Hey. Let me outta here. Wait. I’m surrounded by pink satin and. O.M.G. I’ve been buried. I’m dead. I’m dead? Fuck! I’m too young to die. What happened? Think George, think.”

“See, Frances? His name is George.”

“Who said that?”

“I did. Name’s Phil, George. This is Frances,”

“Hiya George.”

“Ulysses, say hi to George.”

“Hi to George.”

“Lenny?”

“Welcome to the Graveyard George.”

“Welcome to Shady Pines,” They spoke in unison.

It sounded like thousands of voices.

“Hello everyone. I see my body dead in the casket. How are we talking?

“Ever heard of telepathy?”

“Really? Wow! Then we are souls on the way to heaven, right?’

Raucous laughter swelled to near thunder proportions in the echoes of the underground.

“Why all the laughter? What did I say that was so funny?”

Ulysses managed to stop laughing long enough to note, ”Typical ego thinks he’s a soul. Ha Ha Ha.”

“Pay no attention to laughing boy Ulysses,” said Frances recovering her own composure. “Thanks for the laugh. I needed that. We don’t get many of them around here. Laughs, I mean. Whew. We are the egos of the people we once were. Our souls have ascended to take on other bodies, their next life form. Egos are always left behind.”

“Are we ghosts then?”

“No George,” Phil assured him. “Ghosts are lost souls. Not so many of them as you might think. Beetlejuice is one. Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, Lizzy Borden, Satan, Jeffrey Epstein, -

Lenny cut him off. “The list is finite but large. We are just benign personalities in limbo.”

“We have no control over anything physical,” added Phil. “Our bodies rot at a certain pace but we have a promise of being rejuvenated when the time is right.”

“Like Zombies?”

“Nothing so grotesque.”

“I’m confused.”

“Give it time George. None of us adapted overnight either. I’m the ego of Lenny Hanson. Fourth battalion first regiment USMC. Teabagger at your service. Were you a Marine? Pleased to meet you, sir!” said Lenny, a salute in his voice.

“At ease soldier. Regular Navy, here. Medical Corps. Physical therapist. Massage specialist in happy endings. How did you know I was in the military?”

“I heard TAPS at your interment. Sad how they’ve come to sending out two females with a trumpet shaped boom box instead of a jarhead who can play a damned trumpet.”

“How did you know that?”

“We have a limited vision of our immediate surroundings in this state of being. I’ve been here long enough to warrant topside viewing privileges,” Lenny informed him.

“Then you might know the cost of a live trumpet is three times more expensive. Pat and I made all the arrangements several years ago. That’s how I got the pink casket. What a bargain that was. Custom built for a thousand bucks instead of the seven thousand one would cost right out of the warehouse at time of need. Of course, we had to store them in the garage until, well, you know. Pat’s is still there. He got royal purple satin. Always the queen.”

“Pat?” Phil asked.

“He was my life partner. Still is for that matter. Though he’s finely free of me. Hmm. We were together twenty-five years. Got married the day it was legalized. I took his last name.”

“Times have changed everything out there, haven’t they George?” Asked Phil, “Your funeral party arrived without a police escort. I usually hear the motorcycles first. If it hadn’t been for TAPS I’m not sure how long we would have missed your arrival.’

“Pat said we couldn’t afford the police escort,” answered George, a tinge of bitterness belying his affection for Pat.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry,” said Phil, sensing the tension. By the way, the rainbow flag draped on your coffin was a nice touch. Everyone in this section is gay. We are family.”

“If I must be labeled, Phil, I prefer Lesbian, thank you.”

“Sorry Frances. We are all LGBTQIA+ here, George.”

“Really? The guy who sold us the plots didn’t mention that.”

“They never mentioned red lining to black folks looking for a house either,” said Leroy, joining the conversation.

Frances exclaimed, “Good hearing from you again Leroy.”

Leroy said, “Welcome to the neighborhood, George.”

Frances continued, “Leroy is our token Albino. His birth family is all buried in the southern sections. Tell George about how you ended up here Leroy. Your story is delicious.”

“That’s a matter of opinion, Frances. I’m here as a result of death by chocolate. Seriously. You see, my body was whiter than yours pigment-wise but not in the endowment department if you get my gist. So, I landed me a white sugar daddy who loved to get screwed by a big dick. My blood family disowned me twice. Once because I was white as a sheet and twice because I was a flaming faggot.”

George queried, “Death by chocolate?”

“Chocolate mousse cake, Honey. Seven layers of divine decadence. My sugar daddy was also a pastry chef. His desserts were internationally famous. His chocolate mousse cake was to die for. I love that pun.”

“Get to the point gurl,” said Frances impatiently.

“I’ll cut to the chase. I was a bit of a ‘gad-a-bout’, too. My sugar daddy was older than dirt when he took me in. His body wasn’t much to look at since he ate most every dessert he made. His smile though, mmm -mmm, and his talent for fellatio satisfied my pleasure points just fine, for a couple of years anyway, ‘til my eye strayed a bit. Daddy caught me being unfaithful and decided to put something extra in my chocolate mousse birthday cake. I should have known something was up when he wrote ‘Bon Voyage’ on top. I thought he was giving me a cruise of the Caribbean. Do you know how fast cyanide works on the human body? I didn’t have time for a second swallow. Enough about me. We want to hear about how YOU died, Georgie porgy.”

“Oh, well, there’s not much to tell. I caught the COVID 19 virus during the pandemic of 2020. I managed to survive the first bout. My antibodies weren’t good enough though, so I caught it again. The damage to my lungs was too great. I never recovered. Died in a coma on a respirator. I had a DNR and Pat told them to pull the plug.”

“It was the influenza pandemic got Teddy over there in 1918,” Offered Frances.

“I’m the reason you all are here, in this section,” Ulysses interrupted. “I was the first one here about two hundred years ago. Place wasn’t even a cemetery when they planted me before they planted any of these trees.

“Ulysses, how did they know you were gay back then?”

“Good question, Lenny. They called us Sodomites back then. At the time of my demise, I was performing fellatio in the hayloft of an old barn. The recipient of my ministrations was my cousin, a PK two years older than me. We got caught in the act as he started to climax. He yelled out, ‘God help me,’ as his father, mistaking that exclamation of bliss for a plea of help, knocked me out with the butt of his rifle. My cousin lied, saying I seduced him, forced him to let me suck him off. His preacher father and the good deacons of the church judged me an abomination and punished the sin in me by cutting off my genitals and stuffing them in my mouth before they dumped my naked, bleeding body into this crude hole in the ground. I was still alive as they shoveled the dirt back in on top of me. I was 15 at the time. No trial, no casket, no service, no honor, no marker, no justice. But everyone knew where I was interred. Everyone stayed away. Jasper was the second one here. Same thing happened to him. He won’t talk about it anymore. Hell, he won’t talk at all anymore. Right Jasper?”

“As many times as I hear it, Ulysses, your story makes me mad.”

“Thanks, Frances.”

“Let me wrap my head around all this.” said George. “My body died, my soul ascended and I, the ego of my past life is left behind to rot?”

“No. Egos don’t rot. Only the body turns into dust,” Phil corrected him.

“Takes forever,” added Lenny.

“Might as well settle in for the long haul,” said Ulysses, a smile in his voice.

“Wait a minute, y’all.”

The unfamiliar voice startled them all.

“Listen. Closely. Let me fill you in.

About the rich, round, ripe, red, rosy rumors

that float among the dead.

What I’m about to say has been taboo too long,

now it must be said.”

“Jasper can sing? That’s Jasper singing!”

Jasper continued speaking, not singing.

“All our Spirits are returning now,

come to take us back in tow

Reunite the three of us Ego-body-soul.

Imagine your best, happiest time in your body.

That is the body you will ascend in now.

The planet is about to implode.

All that remains will be lost.

Come now with us to the Mothership.

All the lives and beings your soul has ever been

will journey to the next dimension.. All are eternal. Prepare.”

From every grave ever dug, every being ever conscious, rose a rejuvenated physical yet non-material entity. The souls of eternity collected all their past lives into one family. All ascended into the mother ship of the soul and left the near vicinity of the 3-D planet known as Earth moments before it quietly crumbled into dust. In its place, on a higher plane of existence, in a realm of higher frequency, the souls of eternity took up residence on new Earth. Heaven on earth was restored in the blink of the Creators’ eye.