I sit among the dandelions by a black glimmering tombstone. It shines bright and final—never a dull moment. A picture of an old woman glares at me—her trespasser. The sprig of fresh lilacs in the bronze vase speaks of a loved one. A dog stands on the road staring at me.
I look around, feeling the dog’s gaze. Spanish moss dangles from the trees in a green veil of silence. The breeze brings scents of magnolias and the stinking swamp. Thick funnels of gnats rise and move on. Dark silver-veined clouds drift across the sky blotching the sun. The dog’s shadow disappears.
I say in a guilty voice, “C’mere, girl.” She wants to, but she’s shy. The world has been mean to her before. I can relate. Her blueish tail with a white tip is wagging. She gives the world a second chance and comes over to me, smells my hand, and licks it. It’s just me and her in the empty cemetery. She is so vulnerable. A red-wing blackbird lands on the electric wire and watches with bright black eyes. A dark urge comes over me.
“No!” I say to this place of the dead, like a lunatic. The dog jumps back and looks at me. She has heard NO before. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean you. C’mon… That’s a girl.”
She comes closer, sniffing. I think someone has dumped her—some fiend. I knew about fiends. She gives me a bewildered look—tears glisten and run down her face. She is a sensitive soul.
She looks at me like she can read my mind. Her eyes and sad doggie smile say, Go ahead and hit me. I’ll get over it. Even if you are mean, I’ll still be your friend, so go ahead. I’m not giving up on love.
The dark urge to hurt the defenseless creature melts. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. They scrambled my brain for the last four months. I can still feel the electric shocks—jolting my spine out—smell the urine on the table.
She might be an Australian Shepherd or Catahoula Hound. She has those pretty bird-dog spots with a bluish-brown coat and light whitish eyes. “Do you want to be my doggie?” She gets feisty and rolls on the grave with her legs sticking up, and her cute furry head lies on my shoe. She is a trusting soul. I get down in the grass and dandelions. I pet her and rub her hairy, warm stomach—not going too far—not wanting to be some kind of dog molester. She makes a sort of nutty grunting sound. I laugh and she knocks into the bronze vase with her back foot. It tinks off the headstone. I reach and set it back up, straightening the sprig of lilacs, getting it just right. Like a girl primping her fine curly hair. “There all is well, Doggie.”
“Hey, you!” An old man in Khakis stands on the road. The red-wing blackbird flies off. He wears a camo bucket hat and uses a walking stick. A good sized club is what it really is. A green canteen hangs soldier-style on his shoulder.
“Yes?” I say, a bit startled.
“What are you doing at my wife’s grave?” His face is lined with wrinkles, but he looks solid—a real outdoorsy type, but he’s old.
“Nothing, sir. I’m taking a break. I’ve been walking all day.” Actually, I have been fleeing all day—every day for the last week. Everything I say sounds like a lie, but it’s true. He is the first person I have talked to today. I kept to the back roads and even rode a boxcar through Tennessee, with a shirt full of apples in my lap. God, the Great Smoky Mountains are glorious riding the rails. They can never take that away—those Indiana bastards. I am so thirsty.
“Well, take your damn break somewhere besides my wife’s grave.”
The dog is still on her back rolling back and forth in the dandelions and grass on his wife’s grave. “Ok, I’m sorry, sir,” I say, sir to my elders. My old man beat that into me.
“Well, I see you met Lulu,” He smiles seeing me petting her. He walks toward me making puffs in the gravel with his stout stick. His hiking boots kick rocks.
“Yes, sir. She is a fine dog.”
He smiles, again. I can tell he likes how respectful I am. He stands by his wife’s grave admiring the black-shiny tombstone. Chiseled into the glimmer is Beulah Short, Loving Wife 1920-1985. Above is an oval picture of a comely woman who suspiciously stares across the graveyard. I try to get up but he says, “You’re alright. Anyone who’s good to Lulu is welcome at my wife’s grave.”
I’ve never been welcomed to someone’s grave before, but hearing that makes me feel so good, but it terrifies me, too. It’s hard to explain, and even harder to accept. I wasn’t used to being welcome after what they did to me at the State Hospital, and what I did to get there. I didn’t feel welcome anywhere. Not even welcome in my own skin… I managed a little choked-up, “Thanks.”
“I don’t know why I chose that picture. She looks kind of mean, doesn’t she?”
“Nah, I don’t think so.” But I thought, damn right she does.
He gets a faraway look in his eyes and they fill with tears. He wipes at his rough cheeks, rubbing his hand on his leg—unashamed. “You know Lulu was her dog. My Beulah loved her so much. Lulu comes here every day to visit her mommy. She howls and cries. She…”
“-That’s sad,” I say interrupting him. I’m a little rusty with the pragmatics of conversation. The only thing I saw Lulu do was roll around acting like a fool, but a lovable fool.
He frowns, “I guess we have that in common. The crying, not the howling—once the grass grew she finally stopped digging holes. I think she was trying to dig Beulah up. Keep her from suffocating.” Then he laughs. sounding sort of gravelly like bones going around in his throat.
I think about that and stop petting Lulu. That kind of disturbs me. I’ve been and seen all kinds of disturbing things since I escaped Central State Hospital in Indianapolis. Lulu whips to her feet in one fluid move and knocks over the vase again. The old man laughs, bends down on one knee that snaps, righting the vase and the lilacs, and pets her. I can smell his perspiration and Old Spice. My eye goes to his canteen. “Hey, sir, can I get a drink?”
He passes me the green canteen. It’s heavy and wonderful. The canvas cover is rough with a pocket on it and worn shiny on the back. I take a long cool pull, and he studies my jeans with the burrs and mud soaked into the cuffs. My white nuthouse slip-ons are gravediggers brown. The black and orange Baltimore Orioles shirt is torn from the briars barely hanging on. My left arm has a fresh stripe of bright crusting blood. Those damn purple briars.
“You on the lam, son?”
“Nah, just ridin the rails,” I say with a sheepish smile. “Had a little stint in the State Hospital for drinkin.” I instantly regretted blabbing that.
“The asylum?” says the old man, giving me a worried look. Even Lulu stares and seems to judge me.
“Yes sir, but they don’t call it that anymore.”
“Are you dangerous?”
“I’m okay when I’m sober.”
Just then we hear something strange—like a minstrel show or carnival music—and over the hill comes a white ice cream truck.
“What the hell is an ice cream truck doing out here?” says the old man.
“It doesn’t seem right does it?” The vehicle crunches on the loose rocks and rolls to a stop. I feel around in my pocket and pull out three dollars. “You want a fudge bar, sir?”
A giant dressed in white serves us. He reminds me of the state hospital orderlies. Corn-fed bastards, all of them with an evil dumb look in their eye, but so quick with their fist. He says, “Don’t put your hands on the counter.”
I slap down my last dirty three bucks. “Two fudge bars.”
Lulu raises her head toward the darkening sky and lets out a blood-curdling howl. It didn’t seem very loving.
“Good God. She’s insane.”
“Look who’s talking,” said the old-timer. Then he laughs, putting up his hands. “What’s your name?”
“David Lungie.”
“I’m Daniel Short.”
Lulu watches us from her master’s grave. She dug up a dandelion. We wander back over like it’s a picnic spot, and sit in the grass on Mrs. Beulah Short’s grave, unwrapping our fudge sickles watching the ice cream truck disappear over the hill. The music quits. Like it drove into the swamp. Lulu barks and the county sheriff pulls into the cemetery. Then two state police cars and two more.
“Guess it was a little worse than drinkin.” I stand.
“Hold off.” says Daniel Short.
A black hearse follows the police cars and then an entire procession of about thirty cars with small gray magnetic funeral flags trail in. Then we hear the jangling minstrel song playing in the distance and the ice cream truck crunches back into the cemetery.
“Jesus, selling ice cream at a funeral… Damn parasite,” says Daniel licking his fudge sickle.
“Doesn’t seem right, does it?”
Beulah stares from the polished tombstone—forever skeptical about her next life. She has been sending Lulu messages, messages that are very loud in Lulu’s pointed ears, that no one else can hear. Beulah has been instructing Lulu for the last year to dig her up.
Lulu is howling, then she tears out a hunk of grass. I can’t understand how Daniel is so serene, lying back in the grass and dandelions, almost ready for a nap. He says, “That’s okay Lulu, just let it out.” He raises his bucket hat and looks at me. “You know I’ve never seen a dog grieve like this.”
I close my eyes and put my hands on my ears. I can hear Beulah too, or maybe it’s my mother? And just for a second I wish for the state hospital’s Thorazine and electroshock table. Yeah, give me that slobbery bite block. Fry me, Igor! Make what I did to Mama go away.
A shadow sweeps over us. A black cloud, shaped like a pig, blots the sky. Its belly opens and washes the living out of the cemetery, at least for now.
Image: Grand gravestones in a cemetery from Pixabay.com
literally stories 
Christopher
Great tension from the start. The “dark urges” made me nervous. The descriptions of the grave yard and the workings of the MC’s mind, as he fights against his darkness and yet is almost powerless against it are masterfully laid out.
Leila
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Hi Leila
Thanks for your kind words! Glad it came across like that.
Christopher
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Superb pace to this and excellent tension, it’s there all the time just lurking behind the gravestone. The story leaves the reader feeling apprehensive for all the characters. A really well wrought thriller I thought. Thank you – dd
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Thanks so much! Glad you liked the story!
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Hi Christopher,
I thought the dog’s behaviour throughout was an excellent observation on human grief.
In Scotland, I’m not sure how many folks are aware that ECT is still used?? I don’t have enough knowledge on the pros and cons to pass comment. All I will say, is, if it works it works but let’s not kid ourselves, most of us are an experiment and a way for those administering to be credited in their relevant publications.
As always, you write interesting characters with many levels!!
Excellent.
Hugh
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Hi Hugh
I like to write about dogs. They know what’s going on a lot of times. They are honest creatures that look you in the eye.
I think they still use ETC here in the states too, but they administer it with anesthesia. Not like the olden days, like in this story, when they slammed the bite block in and cranked it like a big excruciating Amp!
I tend to agree if it works and helps people then it’s worth it. Scrambling a scrambled mind has some logic.
Yes there is that other side, too. People looking for whatever prize they get from publishing in the scientific journals. I don’t trust scientists or these so-called medical experts who are usually arrogant and tend to treat people like politicians do.
Thanks for your excellent comments!
Christopher
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Christopher
The way you withhold information in this piece in order to build suspense is truly masterful. And it all happens, or seems to happen, in a completely natural way, too. The reader doesn’t feel the writer straining for effect, instead it all just seems to flow, but the sense of suspense and tension gets built up naturally, and you get the reader sitting on the edge of their seat in the same way a Hitchcock movie does, making the reader wonder what will happen next.
The fact that you can take such an extreme situation – character on the lam from the mental ward hiding/resting in a cemetery – and make it all feel so real and so natural is truly amazing!
Many “tricks of the trade” for writing are utilized in this piece, but none of them are obviously done, and all are in their place just like in nature.
Foreshadowing, symbolism, narrative suspense, withholding of information, the key detail, representative details, concrete details, dialogue to reveal character and story elements, flashback/s, background, major character, minor characters, foregrounding, and much more are all present in this story, but none of them are obviously used and none are forced on the reader, and it all just FLOWS.
You are also great at exploring that inescapable concept of modern fiction, the ANTIHERO, the hero as underdog, the hero who wrestles with his own guilt in a complex way, the character who’s been treated badly by life but also has immense agency all of his or her own.
Your main character in this piece is really REALISITC, complex, well-rounded, and complicated.
He seems genuine, everything he does seems natural, from contemplating the tombstone to his complicate feelings for the dog, and his reactions to the antagonist.
It’s also fascinating to watch how he changes in this piece, how his thoughts and emotions evolve as the writing moves along.
Gotta run for now to take care of some things, but I’ll be back later!
Thanks as well for all your comments on Saragun Springs! More there later as well…
This story is just as good as all your others! You are amassing a truly impressive list of tales, they all stand up on their own as separate pieces and function as reflections of each other, too…
Dale
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Christopher,
You had me at the dog trying to dig up Beulah. I’m glad you took your time. Even the cloud at the end isn’t quite the end.
It isn’t supposed to end, is it? Not even the title. — gerry
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Hi Gerry
I wrote several drafts, especially on the ending, and it didn’t want to end! Lol.
I think you are right. It’s ongoing.
Thanks for your excellent and accurate comments!
Christopher
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Excellent psychological study of a deeply troubled soul. The imagery and descriptions set the scene but also build the tension. The man who’s not even welcome in his own skin and who did something horrible to Mama is wholly believable.
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Hi David
Glad you picked out that sentence! It’s a bad place to be when you can’t live in your own skin.
Thanks for your excellent comments!
Christopher
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Hi Dale
Thanks for your great comments!
Glad you liked the story!
You are very generous! I like all of these techniques you mention.
This is really encouraging! Makes me want to write another story.
I’m not sure how this piece of fiction came about. The time period is about the same time I was actually a patient in Richmond State hospital in Indiana. They had a very intense drug and alcohol program. I saw the different wards, mental patients, tunnels, a chrome two body morgue and a lot of confusion and of-course, lunacy.
Central State Hospital was a giant State hospital in Indianapolis that they closed down in the 1990s. It was built in the mid-1800s. There were 5-6 state hospitals in Indiana on a state wide system. The names changed over the years. Almost all of them still exist.
Christopher
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Christopher
You have great courage in dealing with such subjects as these.
It’s also Christian of you to do so, as in the real teachings of the real Jesus (as presented by the Gospel writers) and the original Christians who were almost all outsiders themselves and who all had sympathy for the outsider. Back then, if you didn’t have sympathy for the outsider, you couldn’t even call yourself a Christian, because that’s what it WAS, case closed. A new religion for the outsider. (It’s also why the Roman authorities liked to throw them to the lions or burn them at the stake, of course.)
You never take the easy route as a writer. You always face down the painful truth/s, you always invent your own storylines, and your characters always come straight from REAL LIFE, or seem like they do.
I said more about this story over in Saragun Springs too, check it out whenever ya can!
Later,
Dale
PS, The fact that this character is riding the rails so realistically makes this an adventure story too, a story of escape, but an ambivalent kind of escape – totally brilliant and totally cool! Great material!
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Hi Dale
Thanks so much!
Those early days of Christianity must have been the most exciting days on the Earth (and dangerous)! Can you imagine having the Lord Jesus walking next to you in the flesh!
Yes they must have felt like outsiders. So much against them, but with the Lord there, “who could stand against you?”
It seems those days are back upon us. When the heretics are riding the bus with us and driving it!
I’m happy the characters come across like real people. That is a very high compliment!
I love journeys and adventures. I’m glad this turned into one. Thanks for pointing that out!
Christopher
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This story rang very real for me. Indeed, write another one, maybe a sequel!
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Christopher
I was thinking more about how you manage to make your main characters so convincing and believable and I came up with two reasons, previously discussed and both of which very much bear repeating (in mostly different words).
One: it has to do with the depth of the BACKGROUND in your stories. Your characters always have a PAST, a very detailed past that’s often not gone into in detail but is only referred to, which paradoxically makes it that much more realistic. Other related terms for this are OFFSTAGE ACTION and withholding of information, as in the info is there and the reader knows it is but it isn’t belabored, it’s hinted at. Truly a great short story writer’s technique that not enough writers have mastered, or are even aware of.
The other technique is your own brand of STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS, where you follow the character’s thoughts, emotions, and soul-stirrings (often leading to some sort of moral revelation for the character or the reader, or both) in such close detail, but again without belaboring the point. You SUGGEST instead of telling, another word being SHOW in the “SHOW don’t TELL” formulation except “suggest” is more subtle and advanced.
The reader always knows so much about your characters that isn’t part of the actual story going on at the moment: where they come from, what happened to them recently, what happened to them in their own deep past/s, what they’re thinking, how their emotion is coloring their thoughts, how the combo of their thoughts and emotions leads to them making or having revelations about themselves or other people, all while making the reader have just as deep – or deeper – revelations about the characters than they’re having themselves.
All of the above true displays of the short story writer’s art at the highest levels!
Two of your other arts (poetry and photography) probably also having helped you on your way in this regard. Poetry for getting the most out of words; photography for continual lessons in HOW TO SEE.
Congrats again on another great story, this kind of writing doesn’t come easy!
Dale
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Hi Dale
Thanks for such an excellent response!
This truly, is a learning formula for reinforcing what is going on in my writing.
I have to admit after reading this post I went back to a current story and looked at a minor character at a major point in the story. I wanted to see if I added any details of her past. Or if she was dropped out of the sky (literally in this story having been doomed to an airplane crash).
I found room to do so and thanks to your post I can add this relevant information. Even if she only has a few seconds to live! Every character needs something to SHOW they are of the living. I liked how you put SHOW in your comments. It reminds me of what Kurt Vonnegut said, “Characters need to want something. Even if it’s a glass of water.”
Last week I sent the story, “The Solemn Rules” to Saragun Springs. Mr. Hawley made a comment that kind of startled me. A pretty good and constructive comment. He said, “I don’t get what the dog was all about at the end.” Vanda the MC, made up a contrived story about a lost dog, speaking to the widow on the phone. I had to ask myself. Why did she do that? It really got me thinking about why characters act. Is it just writing to end a story (WEAK) or is the character alive making decisions even if they’re not rational or even understandable ( Stronger). Is the character walking off the stage or is the writer, writing them off the stage? If it’s the latter it has to go. One of Elmore Leonard’s writing rules was, “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it”. That just became clear to me.
So in the final analysis I’m not sure if I came out of left field or not on that one. I was sort of hastily trying to come up with an ending. That made me think of the so-called professional writers that work on deadlines. How difficult that might be.
Readers don’t have the investment in a story. It’s a cold fact how we are either interested in a piece of writing or dismiss it. I think that could be what makes good writing versus bad writing. This value of interest.
You’ve written very helpful comments on my writing (understatement) over this great period of communication.
I have a file that I keep for techniques I’ve learned about writing. Most of these things refer to short story writing. I think I will add this comment of yours to the list. To use as a personal reference if that’s okay.
Because in my search to learn I haven’t come across the exact and valuable information that you have written and provided here.
Your education really shines! I wish I would have pursued writing in college, since it seems to be one of the things I’m most interested in doing. It has gone beyond hobby, escapism, and therapy.
Even though it is still very much used for keeping me in the living or a reason to propagate more air into my lungs, lol. And to stay sober.
I like all of the words that you have written in caps, which is a quick reference tool. A set of highlights in themselves. That’s a really good use of caps by the way. Expert use!
I love reading OFFSTAGE ACTION and the other words in caps, too. That is such a great and relevant technique. I really appreciate the time and thoughtful response that you give to my writing! Truly great, wise, educational, and thought provoking!
Thanks again!
Christopher
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CJA
Thanks very much for your last set of comments, including your comment on my use of the ALL CAP’S technique. Glad to hear this works within its context.
The President of the United States also uses this technique in his posts but he is miserable at it. One of the worst writers who ever lived. Nothing short of a horrendous blabbermouth who destroys language with every word he utters, whether it be in a post on “Truth Social” or straight from the horse’s mouth. VERBAL VOMIT would be a good term for the words of the USA president. We salute you, King Donald! Naw! Not really!
And, it also has to be said that a huge part of your ability to create great characters (the bedrock for this ability) has to be and must be your understanding of human nature in general.
All the writing techniques in the world will not do a damn thing for someone who doesn’t have the VISION and the UNDERSTANDING.
You have the vision, the understanding, AND the technique(s).
Those 3 combined have resulted in greatness! That, and all the reading!
THE DRIFTER
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Drifter
Whatever King T does it seems like we have a duty as a true American to oppose him.
After the insurrection how this man ever ascended to our highest position again, says a lot about the kind of country we live in. Corruption is okay now. It’s on full display.
I really like the governor of Illinois. For being in the billionaire club… He sets a good example. I wish Indiana was a blue state.
Thanks! I try to write decently. Not sure where it will go, but the words keep hitting the page.
Christopher
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Christopher
Yes, the governor of Illinois is pretty good for a billionaire.
And in this case, it’s good he’s a billionaire because it will give him more power to stand up to the Fascists in the long run. And I don’t believe he will be bowing the knee to King Donnie any time soon – or ever.
There was a crisis of meaning in this society that led to corruption becoming “okay.” Maybe this country needs a shock to remind itself what it’s SUPPOSED TO BE all about. And maybe that will be a twenty-year process or even more. I have a feeling it will get much worse before it gets better. But eventually, it will get better……or be the end! Hitler ruled the roost for around 15 years or so, of course. Bad the whole time and the very worst during the last 5 years.
Every empire dies. And this is the kind of stuff that happens when that happens. America is not, on that level, any better, or any worse, than anywhere else.
Stephen King just called this whole thing “a horror story” the other day!
It’s WILD how many people are UTTERLY MAD AND INSANE in this society.
SO MANY so-called “normal” folks are living under so many hard-core delusions it blows the mind.
Two kinds of delusions: Personal and Mass.
Mass delusions are the very worst kind by far because they can lead to mass herd actions! A horror story indeed.
Dale
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Dale
Agreed it is mind blowing how all of these lies became reality. The masses are a scary force. “The Good German,” wants to put his boots on again.
CJA
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I was gripped by this story from the beginning. It flows very well. How strange our world is! So unpredictable and yet…. these events are entirely probable. The protagonist goes deeper, he he, he knows about the communication between Lulu and Mrs. Short. The ending is just right, that impression of the storm….and the shadow.
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Glad it came across as real! Super glad you liked the ending!
Thanks Harrison!
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What I like most about this piece is what is not said. Like real life, we never get all of the answers, and many of the answers we do get are false.
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Thanks Doug!
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