On Dust
"on dust" is just a homonym from which the slang for the day of the dead in my country sounds like, which is today. It might ring a bell to some though rather than my previous post's title which was a lot confusing and I felt anybody could have hardly made that one out. Anyway the day of the dead is one of the few days I don’t get to work and since I was going to get a day off, I decided to buy a couple of beers during lunch break yesterday should I wish to enjoy the rest of today. I got to some mall grocery about three blocks from the office and shopped for my supply of alcohol.
The day of the dead in our country is pretty much a one day retreat of the living to the graveyards, so the groceries were kind of full because people were buying foodstuff they will be eating above graveyards while worms are also eating their dead relatives six feet below the ground. Anyway I got my grocery basket, loaded it with beers and lined my way out of the place. There was lady in front of me unloading her cart of grocery items to the counter, she had her little girl sitting and facing me from behind her shopping cart, she was a cute little girl I’d say around three or two and she held this coke in a plastic bottle by both hands, she stared at me and she looked like she was sorry for something. She stared at me then stared at my basket of beer bottles for a while then stared at her coke bottle, she went staring at me again and this time she looked confused and held her coke tighter. If she could have been older a bit she could have gone asking me what the hell those in my basket are. I could have told her it was beer to make her stop looking so goddam sorry maybe about my liver or something.
My father and brothers were in manila so I went to the graveyards alone around noon today, I thought it was a good time to visit because I felt the great mass of the living couldn’t stand the heat at this time of the day and most of them must have fled. I first visited my grandfather and my great grandmother’s grave and then dropped by this friend’s grave who shot himself in the head some three months ago, nobody was around so I stood there for a while staring at the date on this tombstone reading: died august 14 2006 and when I thought I was alone I saw his mother sitting by the shade, I went up to her and said hi and it almost made her son alive for a moment seeing me there, I went back home soon after because the high noon heat could have dried my brains out and drove me nuts.
I spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping and woke up at five, I slept like a log because I don’t spend that much time in slumberland that much on regular days, anyway this late afternoon I visited another graveyard, this place is pretty much old and not much of the living do frequent the place, like the last dead person who got buried here was already 20 years ago and probably the last person who could remember them is also dead in some other graveyard. I brought along four candles only to remember that I have five dead relatives buried in this place, I lost count because I haven’t met most of my dead in this graveyard in my lifetime. Almost all the tombstones in this graveyard are broken, and most of them had weeds and molds growing over the edges and had a candle or two around it like somebody left them burning in a hurry. Hell there was even a lost graveyard goat grazing in this place, it was walking around sniffing some grass that grew in the cracks in the pavement and Im sure it could have also gone away with some of the flowers placed for the dead. The goat could just have had a kin buried in this place too, or it could have been somebody who got reincarnated inside the poor animal that it was checking out on its own tombstone for candles.
It made you feel hell creepy walking around this place at sunset.
The day of the dead in our country is pretty much a one day retreat of the living to the graveyards, so the groceries were kind of full because people were buying foodstuff they will be eating above graveyards while worms are also eating their dead relatives six feet below the ground. Anyway I got my grocery basket, loaded it with beers and lined my way out of the place. There was lady in front of me unloading her cart of grocery items to the counter, she had her little girl sitting and facing me from behind her shopping cart, she was a cute little girl I’d say around three or two and she held this coke in a plastic bottle by both hands, she stared at me and she looked like she was sorry for something. She stared at me then stared at my basket of beer bottles for a while then stared at her coke bottle, she went staring at me again and this time she looked confused and held her coke tighter. If she could have been older a bit she could have gone asking me what the hell those in my basket are. I could have told her it was beer to make her stop looking so goddam sorry maybe about my liver or something.
My father and brothers were in manila so I went to the graveyards alone around noon today, I thought it was a good time to visit because I felt the great mass of the living couldn’t stand the heat at this time of the day and most of them must have fled. I first visited my grandfather and my great grandmother’s grave and then dropped by this friend’s grave who shot himself in the head some three months ago, nobody was around so I stood there for a while staring at the date on this tombstone reading: died august 14 2006 and when I thought I was alone I saw his mother sitting by the shade, I went up to her and said hi and it almost made her son alive for a moment seeing me there, I went back home soon after because the high noon heat could have dried my brains out and drove me nuts.
I spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping and woke up at five, I slept like a log because I don’t spend that much time in slumberland that much on regular days, anyway this late afternoon I visited another graveyard, this place is pretty much old and not much of the living do frequent the place, like the last dead person who got buried here was already 20 years ago and probably the last person who could remember them is also dead in some other graveyard. I brought along four candles only to remember that I have five dead relatives buried in this place, I lost count because I haven’t met most of my dead in this graveyard in my lifetime. Almost all the tombstones in this graveyard are broken, and most of them had weeds and molds growing over the edges and had a candle or two around it like somebody left them burning in a hurry. Hell there was even a lost graveyard goat grazing in this place, it was walking around sniffing some grass that grew in the cracks in the pavement and Im sure it could have also gone away with some of the flowers placed for the dead. The goat could just have had a kin buried in this place too, or it could have been somebody who got reincarnated inside the poor animal that it was checking out on its own tombstone for candles.
It made you feel hell creepy walking around this place at sunset.
"I hope to hell when I do die somebody has enough sense to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery."
Holden Caulfield
posted by Lib at 9:54 PM
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