"The Graveyard"

The man reached for my hand. Self conscious of the sweat gathering in my palm, I recoiled and looked up at him with a hot face. His eyes shot to the ground and in response, my gaze lowered as well. We walked in silence, staring at our feet.

I began counting our steps silently in my head.

Right foot, one.

Left foot, two.

Right foot, three.

And so on until after exactly 353 steps we came to the end of the street. A creature ran by shrieking "popcorn treats" over and over until the words trailed into the autumn breeze and curled up and around the naked trees.

The breeze consumed the words and swirled back toward us. I shivered.

Looking back at the man I stopped.

"You're a cowboy now?"

"Haven't I always been?" he tipped his hat and jumped atop a short stone wall that lined the edge of a cemetery.

The man reached his arms down to help me into the graveyard. The twilight lit him from behind, the setting sun providing a profile with a featureless black face. "Come here," the voice escaped the mouthless head. The raspy sound cracked as it left and hit me in the face.

We made it over the wall and I looked back at the man.

"Cowboy again?" I laughed.

"Haven't I always been?" he tipped his hat and led the way deeper into the graveyard.

The piece of wheat in his mouth bobbed to the side. I couldn't look away. His gait, his walk, that hat. The guns and the holster. How didn't you realize he was a cowboy? The question ran through my brain out one ear and back through to the other.

No horse.

I stopped, "If you're a cowboy, where's your horse?"

Without missing a stride, he kicked a large pile of fallen leaves to the side and laughed, "wouldn't you like to know."

I stood and watched him pass deeper and deeper into the graveyard, past memorials, family plots, until he took a turn around a mausoleum and disappeared into the settling fog. I turned back toward the street and screamed.

The cemetery was ablaze.

Every leaf on every tree, every leaf on the ground, shone brilliantly in the setting sun. Fire danced on the edges, warping them all into caricatures of flora. They began to rise and shrink, breathing with the fire that seemed to grow and grow on the young, healthy autumn saplings. The giant Oaks with their vibrant yellow colors all simultaneously exploded into fireballs along the walking path.

Unreal. The fleeting thought was mysteriously calm. Every muscle in my body screamed RUN, but I sat in the pile of blazing leaves around me and laid down.

Had I screamed? I wasn't even sure anymore. My gaze was at the darkening sky, the trees engulfed in flame, and my thoughts were of the burning, fiery magma all around me in the leaf piles at the cemetery.

I smiled, and closed my eyes.