Lonely Ghosts.by Rebecca Disley 

Syd walked along the narrow path of flattened grass between the gravestones just like he always did. On his walk home from work, on his way to the shops, on lonely days couped up at home watching the rain pour down his window panes he came to the graveyard. He walked through the melancholy bluebells that lined its edges, past balloons tied to pristine headstones and sad teddies left in the middle of graves to keep the dead company until he got to Liam. To the black marble with his date of birth and death, the little line etched across the bottom of it that was meant to sum up his whole life. Who he was. What he was. But it couldn’t, it was too small. Too dull. It blended in with all the other messages on all the other graves but nothing about Liam had ever blended in.

Syd could still see him there, sometimes. Standing right in front of him. Dark hairs falling into his gleaming hazel eyes, a big, bright smile spreading across his face as soon as he saw Syd the way it did every time they met up. Every time those eyes looked up through the falling hairs and fixed on Syd’s long, pale face.

He weaved around huge Yew trees in the centre of the long grass as the air cooled around him, as light rain fell like snow settling on the top of Syd’s thick blonde waves, the gravestones getting closer and closer together. Old cracked stones peeped out from behind the new ones, the last remnants of souls lost to time, watching Syd walk by, praying for his face to ring a bell, his voice to be their brother’s; their son’s; their husband’s. At the very end of the yard, engulfed in thistles, nettles and moss that faded into the words etched across it, an ancient stone stood. It looked over Liam’s grave, over everyone’s, and when Syd squinted he could just make out the name:

Denis Doe.

Every grave had something on it. A gift, an ornament, a bunch of well watered flowers but Denis had nothing. The path of trampled grass stopped just shy of his burial plot, his ghost’s hopes were crushed time and time again as people like Syd wandered by without a word, a second glance. Their faces never rang a bell, their voices were never that of family; friends; spouses. Every time he saw the stone, the dying name vanishing bit by bit, his heavy heart sank. The smile on Liam’s face shrank away in his mind until the only thing he saw when he reached his brother’s grave were those eyes staring straight into him. Watching him as he set the same bunch of roses down where his ashes lay, buried next to their great grandparents, and Syd could hear his voice. He knew what Liam would say:

“How can you walk past the lonely man like that, Sydney?”

And Syd would have said: “Shut up!”

He would have said: “I can’t help if someone else is lonely, I’m here for you not him.”

He would have said: “What if I give him some cash? A wave? One of your roses, would that make you feel better?”

Yes.

It would. It would bring that big smile back on his face, make him straighten up tall and proud. As Syd saw Liam’s name again, the last bunch of flowers he had brought for him drooping and falling apart over his final resting place one petal at a time, he stepped off the flattened path. He fought his way through the forest of stinging nettles and sharp purple flowers, took a crimson rose out of the vibrant scarlet bunch clenched tight in his other hand and set it in between the vicious weeds, in front of the thickening moss. Right by that fading name.  

Rebecca Disley

Image by M from Pixabay – ancient gravestone with flowers round the base.