She was buried here, amidst the green. I'd like to believe she likes it. Likes the anonymity of it. Only me and her parents know she's here, everyone else believes she was burnt, her ashes a last painting to the wind and the sky of a remote meaningless beach. I'd preferred her burnt.

Yet, here I am. If i dislike it so much, why am I still here? A remainder, don't ask me of what.

Time gives clarity, they say. Perspective. Maybe that's true, for some. Not for me. Time has been like a river while she was the landslide. The more time passes, the more mud-filled and blurry my emotions become.

So, I don't know why I still visit her. It's like a duty. A self-imposed chore.

I turn around from facing the nameless tree we planted atop her and stare at the view. I'm at the top of the hill; she's at the top of a hill if she's there at all.

Sitting down, I notice how the wind is absent. The leaves rest heavy and shadowed, the grass is hot and plastic. I want to scream.

She liked silence. I don't scream.

My mind is empty. My chest hurts. My fingers bury themselves in the hard soil. A thought, quick like a fly.

One hand, then the other, then the other, then the other, then the other, then the other.

Then my fingernail scrapes on a pebble. It lodges itself between fingernail and fingerflesh. I stop.

I can't tell if the liquid on my chin is sweat or tears.

My hands are red and sore, their skin covered in black patches of dirt. A little stream of red from the nail where the pebble is.

I pull it out, without feeling and let it fall to the ground.

It falls and bounces silently between the scraping ridges my hands left on the packed ground.

Below, far below, I hear a car engine get closer and then turn off.

My eyes widen in surprise. I'm not supposed to be here, not for them. I have to leave.

My eyes suddenly fill with tears, my knees turn into theater glass.

The silence seems to blanket everything but the mosquitoes and the heat.

Slowly, I hear their footsteps. Coming up the hill, dragging the world with them.

Closer, closer, closer, closer, closer, closer.

Finally my knees give out. Stumble into the green. Sound, then, Silence, now.

Closer, closer, closer, closer,

They take a left turn and I can see them through the leaves. He's wearing a suit, not well kept, disheveled. She's wearing a grey blouse and black fabric pants. She looks old.

They come up to her and stare at the scraping my fingers left in the earth. Not a word.

Silence blankets the world.



I am gone.
They are gone.





She, dead and buried and falsely burned, remains.