Why It Matters

Fiction

No one knew how long the cemetery flowed through the carefully manicured forest. No headstones peeked from the loam like dated mushrooms to tell its secrets. The trees provided some clue: gnarled, mossy oaks lined the river banks and towering cedars rained their spongy needles upon the peacock-like ferns that nested on the forest floor. But no one really knew the cemetery’s age.

Few non-organic fixtures stood in the woods, just a pair of twin bridges composed of huge igneous stones willed into place likely with primitive levers and block and tackle, their arches long settled and carpeted green with velvet moss. And of course there stood the bronze gates, with their hammered rivets and hinges.

If the age of the cemetery was unknown, who laid the bridges’ stones and dug the lazy, horseshoe of a river that flowed from one enormous bronze door to the other was an even bigger mystery. For all we knew the cemetery rose from the forest floor along with the trees and the ferns and the mushrooms that were not tombstones.

My earliest memory begins with running behind my mother, the ground beneath my feet so spongy that I felt like I was jumping on my bed. Her long hair was pulled into pigtails like a little girl’s, and they danced behind her like handlebar streamers as she raced through the woods. “Hurry!” she shouted. “We’ll miss it!” My little legs churned as swiftly as they could and my sparrow chest burned. “Hurry! Hurry!”

The Sun’s first rays bolted through the trees as we reached the morning bridge. We stared at the great bronze doors until they creaked slowly upon their tired hinges. “Here they come,” Mother said, pointing as the first casket bumped its way through the still-parting doors. We watched it float toward the bridge and then under it, and then we turned and watched the simple black box float down the lazy river, followed by dozens of identical caskets. Maybe there were hundreds, I don’t know. I was a little boy whose fingers still represented the upper limits of his mathematical certainty.

Mother and I quietly watched them float away like paper boats until she sensed that my attention waned. “I saw it once,” she said.

“Saw what?”

“The golden casket. It was just after my mother passed away.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like, silly boy. A casket made from gold.”

“Who is inside?”

“Nobody knows, but I believe that inside is the person whom you miss the most, and that’s why I saw it after my mother passed. Most people go their entire lives without seeing it because they get so busy that they forget to miss. That’s what happened to me, I guess, because I never saw it again after that day. Keep your eyes open today and maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. If you see it, your heart’s wish will come true.”

“Did your heart’s wish come true when you saw it, Mama?”

“You’re here with me, aren’t you?” she said, and she grabbed my hand and led me to the river’s bank. We walked upon the footpath that wound along the shore. The rising sun warmed our backs, and colorful birds flitted through the trees: blue jays, red cardinals, yellow finches, orange orioles. They were fragments of stained glass glittering from the forest’s canopy.

“You know what it means when you see a cardinal?” Mother asked, and then without waiting for a reply: “That’s someone who is gone coming back to visit you.”

“Gone like Daddy?”

“Gone like Grandma.”

“Did I know Grandma?”

“You were just a baby when she died, but you knew her. She called you Puddin’ because you were soft and sweet.”

“Oh yeah, I remember,” I said. I didn’t remember, but it was nice of Grandma to fly down and visit us. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “Mama? You can call me Puddin’ if you want to.”

“Well thank you, Puddin’, I just might do that,” she smiled.

We walked until the sun shone brightly and the black caskets had drifted long out of sight. The lazy river stood so still that I could make out the insects skating across its surface. I wanted to skip a rock, but I didn’t want to disrupt their fun.

The narrow footpath wound like the river’s earthen twin, mimicking each curve in well trodden soil. Who had been doing the treading presented a bit of a mystery, for with exception to my mother’s and my recent footprints no signs of human presence contaminated the forest. No noisy children laughing and bickering, no radios blaring tinny songs about love and sunshine. It was as if the forest’s undergrowth simply knew to stop at the shoulders of the little trail, the result perhaps of some ancient agreement between the path and its leafy neighbors. Nature talks, you know. We just don’t bother to listen.

“Are you hungry?” Mother asked, and I realized that I was. The Sun was nearly overhead now. How far must we have walked? I quietly worried that we wouldn’t be able to find our way home, but she didn’t seem the least concerned.

“Do we have sandwiches?” I asked.

“Our lunch is out there,” she smiled.

“We’re going to eat the woods?”

“Yes, we’re going to put that great big forest in your teeny tiny tummy.” She laughed and then she poked my belly button before grabbing my hand and leading me into the undergrowth.

She was a wonderful forager, guided by some inner compass, flitting from blueberries to huckleberries to wild strawberries to tender raspberries, their fruit filling the tail of the bright red sweater that she cradled in front of her as a makeshift bowl. We found a clearing along the riverbank and she laid our feast upon a flat, table-sized hunk of granite before taking off her shoes and dipping her feet into the water. I followed her example and then greedily stuffed my mouth with berries. Juice stained my hands and dripped from my chin. “Slow down, Puddin’,” Mama laughed. “They aren’t going anywhere.”

When I said that I was thirsty, she showed my how to make a cup with my hands and scoop water from the river. I hesitated. “That’s where the dead people live,” I said.

“No, no. It’s good water, see,” and then she drank from her hand cup so I did the same. It was cool and delicious.

We finished our makeshift meal and returned to the path. As we walked Mother named the plants we passed, not with stuffy Latin names but rather childlike descriptors that seemed to tumble spontaneously from her lips. “Those little pink flowers are bunny noses….look over there near the water: unicorn horns!” I dutifully stored each name away. One never knows when such information might come in handy. Ahead in the distance, black specks floated on the water’s surface. Their silhouettes sharpened with each step closer. The caskets.

“There’s a hairpin in the river up there. Sometimes the people get stuck,” Mother explained.

“Why doesn’t somebody pull it out?”

“That is a very good question,” she smiled. “Why hasn’t someone pulled it out?”

The sound of the wooden boxes knocking together and the water lapping at their sides grew louder as we neared, the caskets’ occupants jostling for their chance to navigate the tight, narrow turn. Some had drifted sideways, creating a makeshift dam against which the impatient passengers bumped with increasing frustration. Mother stopped me with a squeeze of my hand and squatted in place. She pointed a slender finger toward the woods and whispered,” Shh.”

A figure emerged from the trees, a man carrying a long wooden pole. I say he was a man because he possessed both arms and legs, but I don’t remember his face. I’m not sure he had one. As for his clothing, it too remains without description other than to say that it was of the woods. Trying to describe his attire is like talking about a deer’s suit.

“We aren’t supposed to see this,” Mother said. “Be very quiet and still. We don’t want to scare him.”

The man stepped to the river’s edge and twisted each foot left to right a couple of times as if screwing himself to the ground, then he extended the wooden pole and gently maneuvered a casket through the narrow corner, and then another, each in its turn, with a delicacy born of vast experience. He was their guide, their shepherd, no need to hammer or force the shiny black boxes. They knew where to go, after all. They just needed a little help.

When the jam was cleared and the man returned safely to the woods, Mother and I stood. “That was very special,” she said. We returned to our walk. I scoured the woods for some trace of the strange man–footprints, trampled brush, a distant cabin–but spotted none. I realized then that during our long walk along the cemetery river I’d seen no terrestrial animals: no deer, rabbits, or squirrels; no red-eared sliders or blue-tailed skinks sunning themselves. Just birds flitting through the trees and insects skating upon the glassy water without a single hungry fish bothering them.

The Sun shone behind us again now that we had rounded the big curve in the river, but where our shadows grew shorter as we walked earlier in the day now they grew longer with every step. They stretched until I was taller than a Christmas tree, but Mother’s shadow remained bigger. I stood on my toes. I stretched my arms high above my head. I leaped into the air. No matter how I tried, I could not cast a shadow taller than my mother’s.

She mistook my shadow games for restlessness. “Let’s race,” she said. “Ready? One two three GO!” and she was off, her handlebar streamer pigtails fluttering behind her. I took off, too, confident that I could beat her. She was old, after all, and a girl, and my sneakers were almost new. Nothing is faster than new sneakers.

We ran until we caught up with the floating caskets and then we sprinted past them. They ignored us, carried on at the leisurely pace dictated to them by the current. My little legs pistoned so swiftly that they didn’t feel like they were part of my body anymore. I felt almost out of control, like I was running down a steep hill in order to keep from falling. My arms pumped faster than my heart did, my back rigid and my head held high.

“Oh, no you’re catching up!” Mother cried as I pulled even with her. “You’re going to beat me! You’re going too fast!” I spotted the evening bridge up ahead and assumed that must be our finish line. My heart threatened to fly away if I didn’t stop, but I ignored it and pushed harder. When I tagged the mossy bridge, Mother clapped and exclaimed, “You won!” She stood no more than one step behind me. She placed her hand on my heaving back and walked with me to the center of the bridge.

The river’s banks teemed with wild roses, carnations, violets, and lavender. Water lilies lounged upon the water’s surface, which burned with the fiery sparks of the red setting sun. “Here they come,” Mother said, and she pointed to the shiny black caskets floating closer. Behind us the big bronze doors creaked open, just as their twins had done earlier that day. I turned in part to watch them slowly ease open, but mostly to see what lay behind that enormous gate. There was nothing there but a blackness more velveteen than the moss beneath my feet.

One by one the caskets floated under the bridge and vanished into the darkness, the water lilies bumping and spinning and hula dancing in their gentle wakes. One by one until no black boxes remained and the bronze doors swung back together with quiet finality. “Well, shoot,” Mother sighed. “I guess I ought to get going.”

“Where are we going, Mama?”

“You are going home and going to bed. You have a lot to do tomorrow, and a lot of tomorrows to do. I am going for a swim.” With that she leaped from the bridge, arms outstretched. For the briefest moment she flew, and then with a great splash she tore a wound into the river’s tender skin. The water lilies raced to safety and the flowers along the riverbanks lapped at the drops of water she splashed upon them. I watched helplessly as she swam upriver, against the current, her bright red sweater growing increasingly faint beneath the river’s surface. The lilies drifted back into place and the water stilled, and I stood alone upon the mossy bridge.

The Sun was almost gone now, and with it all of the forest’s color. I stood there alone in the gray dusk because I didn’t know what else to do, a lost boy with no idea how to find his way home. And then the big bronze doors creaked slowly open again. For a moment I thought they opened for me, but then something flashed in the near distance, one last brilliant glint in the dying light of the day. The golden casket drifted toward me. It shone so brightly that I wondered if it radiated its own light.

As it neared the bridge the water lilies again retreated to the riverbanks, where they paid silent tribute like mourners standing graveside. The golden box drifted to the bridge’s opening, and my heart’s wish escaped me like a deep breath after a long cry. Then the casket was gone and along with it the last rays of the setting sun.

This is my earliest memory.

You wonder whether my heart’s wish was granted to me, but you already know that answer. You are here with me, after all, aren’t you?