And Death Sings Show Tunes

Story about a kid struggling with existential dread amidst a strange cultural event

And Death Sings Show Tunes

They stood above the fourth grave from the left in the third row at the Riverside Cemetery. The moonlight was just bright enough to illuminate the eroding headstone, and Daniel stared at it blankly. Not Forgotten, it read at the bottom. Above were fragments of words and numbers, which were rendered incomprehensible by years of inclement weather. Eventually, Daniel’s attention strayed from the headstone and landed on Sarah zoned out in the smoke of her cigarette. With her mouth agape, she let the smoke drift and spread like a fog and watched as the long tendrils caressed each other. She let the smoke out at different speeds and with different jaw and lip positioning and observed the changes to the cloud she produced. Daniel had an unopened pack of cigarettes in his pocket, but had chosen not to smoke with her. As he waited for her to snap out of her trance, he surveyed the surrounding cemetery. He saw broken Earth in every direction. Intermittent patches of green grass isolated by larger patches of brown, upturned soil. His eyes went grave to grave taking roll and at each one he found the same cracked surface. The only solid piece of land in the area was the one he was standing on.

               When the dead came back to life it had been a surprise for everyone, obviously. Daniel was sitting in his living room eating sliced carrots and playing a board game with his father. The TV was on playing some educational program about space, and Daniel was ignoring it aggressively because he found space to be terrifying. All of sudden, a zombie crashed into the window like a panicked bird. Daniel was petrified and his father leaped out in front of him. Daniel’s fear quickly gave way to confusion as the zombie fell backwards onto its a*s, struggled to stand up, and then wobbled away aimlessly into the street. Daniel’s father slowly let his guard down and when he turned to face his son, it was clear that he was equally as confused. As it turned out, the zombie apocalypse was more like a zombie pestilence. The undead did not have a hunger for brains or a desire to kill. They kind of just grazed around.

In the following months, humanity overcame its collective confusion and adapted to the presence of the zombies. Daniel read a story about some budding psychopath in South Carolina who got bored of killing his neighbor’s cats and dogs and was caught torturing a zombie that he tied to a tree. In the wake of this incident, zombie rights groups sprang up across the globe. Zombie was now a derogatory word. America’s politically correct population started referring to them as ‘Undead Americans’ and the phrase eventually caught on in other countries, which made no sense to Daniel. Despite the best efforts of these groups, zombies were still exploited. The sex industry had a field day when it obtained a new fetish to cater to and zombie prostitutes began popping up all over the globe. Pornography websites now had a whole new category, which was usually named some variation of ‘Undead S***s’ or ‘W****s from the Underworld’ with video titles like ‘She Came Back from the Dead Just to Suck C**k!’ The Zombie Rights Groups had a campaign against these exploitations. They threw up billboards with the slogan ‘Gaaahhh Does Not Mean Consent’ and late night television hosts made jokes about it.

Sarah had finished her cigarette and she flicked the filter into the upturned grave to the right of her. Across the street at the Riverside Church, she saw a dimly lit sign that read, ‘When your corpse is walking the Earth, where will your soul be?’ followed by the times that mass was being held on each day of the week. It made her chuckle. Eventually, she turned towards Daniel. “You’re obsessed,” she said.

“I’m just curious,” he responded with his eyes set on the headstone of the sole intact grave.

“No, I’m curious. You’re obsessed.”

“You didn’t have to come. I told you that you didn’t have to come.”

“Everyone says you’re crazy.”

Daniel drove the shovel into the dirt, lifted, and tossed. Sarah lit another cigarette and stared at him expectantly. He kept digging and remained silent. Sarah started humming. Finally, he turned towards her. “What?” he asked.

“Are you crazy?”

“You know I’m not crazy.”

“No, I don’t. You’re obsessed with this grave and its driving you crazy.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. I’m just curious.”

“And you think you’re going to find answers with that shovel?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Start digging.”

They dug together in silence and after a while Sarah began to grow tired. She lifted a shovelful and groaned out her displeasure. With every shovelful of dirt, she groaned slightly loader until Daniel could no longer ignore her dissatisfaction.

“You can take a break if you want,” he offered.

“This is going to take us all night. Let’s just give up.”

“No one’s forcing you to stay here.”

She drove the head of her shovel into the ground and the shaft vibrated violently when she removed her hands from it. She turned away from Daniel to face the gothic looking spiked gate that surrounded the cemetery. One cigarette wasn’t enough to calm her down, so she smoked three. His pack remained untouched. Daniel watched her back and saw the smoke steam out from the top of her head as it rose into the sky and all the while he kept digging and digging. He had started to feel fatigued by the time she stopped smoking and turned back to him.

               She sat down cross legged on the ground next to the hole, and, looking much calmer, said, “Maybe there is a zombie in that grave, but he’s just like, maybe like, trapped in his coffin or something. Because it was too hi-tech to break out of. Or something.” She gave him a teasing smile and it briefly distracted him from the aching pains slowly but surely engulfing his entire body. Recognizing his reaction, she continued her hypothetical ramblings, and said, “Or what if this is some sort of midget’s grave, and when we finish digging were gonna find some little midget struggling to dig his way out.” She burst open with laughter, “But, y’know, he’s like too small to reach the top.”

               Daniel joined in the game, and said, “Or once we dig down all the way were gonna find a tunnel, and it’ll turn out that the zombie was just digging the wrong way the whole time.”

               “For an entire year?”

               “He’s a dumb zombie.”

               They both laughed loudly and Daniel noticed that he had stopped digging. His already aching abdominal seared even harder as he laughed, which only made him laugh more and caused even more pain. The cackles decreased in frequency over time, and, when the laughter had fully receded, silence filled the vacuum left by it. “Ready?” asked Sarah.

               “Yeah,” Daniel replied as he lifted his shovel up and resumed digging.

               “What are you doing?” Sarah looked utterly perplexed.

               “Uh, digging.”

               “I thought we were leaving. To go home.”

               “Making jokes is fine and all, but I’m finding out what’s in this grave.”

               Sarah lifted her shovel out of the dirt and hurled it at him. The edge of the shovel head hit his shin and he hopped up in the beginning motion of a skip from the sudden pain. Recovering from the attack, anger flared within Daniel and he whipped his head around toward Sarah. Their ferocious gazes locked matching themselves in intensity.

               Sarah broke the silence. “F**k you, Daniel! You’re a f*****g p***y! Cut out the f*****g Prince-Hamlet-tortured-soul bullshit.”

               Daniel didn’t speak.

               Raging back at his silence, Sarah yelled, “It’s been a year. A f*****g year, Daniel! Move on!”

               To Sarah’s disbelief, Daniel resumed digging. Her anger heightened as a result of his absurd persistence until it reached a peak and collapsed in on itself. After, all she felt was pity.

 “I’m leaving,” she said, “Its cold and I’m tired.”

               “Okay, I’ll see you,” he responded.

               “Why do you need to know?”

               He looked at her with wide, vulnerable eyes. He hesitated, and then said, “Just curious. Really curious.”

               She sighed, “If you’re going to keep digging all night, make sure you get something to eat. I don’t wanna have to come back and get you because you’re too weak to move.” She turned and walked off towards the gate.

               Ignoring his pain, Daniel kept digging. His upper back curved every time he lifted up a shovel full, and the vertebrae of his spine struck out like daggers from beneath his shirt. All the scars on his hands had gone purple and the skin surrounding them was a dark red. Cold beads of sweat dripped down his face, around his cheekbone, and off his chin. His stomach became an animal, growling its displeasure and gnawing at him violently. Nonetheless, he kept digging. His biceps felt like wires stretched to their limit and his shoulders had long since gone numb, but he took it one shovelful at a time. When the hole reached six feet, he thought about getting something to eat, but didn’t. When the hole reached eight feet, he thought about it again. Once he reached ten feet, he gave up digging. Nothing, he thought to himself, Absolutely Nothing. Sitting at the bottom of the hole, exhaustion took him captive and he fell into a deep sleep.

               He saw Death in his sleep. Its body was some sort of dark matter, not liquid, solid, or gas. A horse’s skull adorned the top of its neck and it had a deep voice with an Ole Western twang. “Hello and Welcome,” it said.

               Daniel didn’t have to ask who it was because he knew. Instead he asked, “Why did you send them back from the grave?”

               Death pivoted his toe in the dirt, shook his hips, and wiggled his finger above his head. He scat sung his response, “A skittily beep bop a doo do doo.”

               Daniel questioned him again, “Is there a god?”

               Death grooved to the non-existent music, and sang, “Boo doo do dowop a skittilybee.”

               Daniel tried again, “Is there any point to life?”

               With an upward facing palm, Death moved his arm like he was showing off a dish of food at a fancy restaurant. He then repeated the motion with his other arm and grooved his head back and force as he switched between them while singing, “I can show you the world. Shining, shimmering, splendid. Tell me, princess, when did you last let your heart decide?”

               Suddenly, Death’s body started shining brightly, and Daniel was blinking.

“Hey, you okay down there?” asked the officer standing above the grave with flashlight in hand.

It took Daniel a second to get his bearings.  “Yeah, I’m good,” he responded

“Woo, that’s a relief. Could ‘a sworn you were dead.”

“Nope.

The officer shook his head. “Did you dig this?”

“Yes.”

“Son, you’re gonna have to quit it with these one word answers. I need some explanations if you expect me not to call this in. And I don’t very much feel like making a game out of asking you questions.”

Daniel didn’t know what to say. He nervously fingered the wall of dirt to the right of him, prodding at different crevices and knocking down chunks in an avalanche onto his lap.

The officer was losing his patience. “Don’t make me cuff you, boy.”

Settling on something simple and concrete, Daniel asked, “Can you help me out?”

The officer nodded, vaguely pleased. He walked over to the hole, got on his knees, and extended his hand. Daniel clutched at it tightly, hoisted his foot onto the dirt wall, and pushed upwards with his leg while pulling down with his arm. The officer tilted forward from the weight of him and ended up balancing on his knee caps unsteadily like an amputee who refuses to use a wheelchair as Daniel swung his other foot out of the hole and onto the surface.

It took them a second to catch their breath and compose themselves. Still exhausted from digging, Daniel was unsteady on his feet and wobbled back and forth.

“You’re a mess, kid.” The officer sat down on the small slice of grass that was left. “Come on, sit down.”

Daniel followed suit and sat on the ground across from him. “Thank you,” he said.

“You smoke, son?”

“I do.”

“You got cigarettes?”

“Yes, I do. Do you want one?”

“I’d be very grateful.”

Daniel took out his unopened pack of cigarettes. He handed one to the officer along with a lighter, and took one himself mainly out of courtesy. After the officer had lit his, Daniel did the same. He took a drag and felt the buzz. It was nice, but pointless.

The officer continued to smoke, and said, “So, what’s the story?”

“I was looking for answers. I wanted to know why a zombie didn’t come out of this grave.” Daniel held his cigarette, but didn’t smoke it. Without the assistance from his lungs, the bright embers at the tip consumed the tobacco at slow pace. The officer smoked his aggressively.

“Well,” he said, “that’s your first mistake. Looking for answers these days is a fool’s journey.”

“Then why even get out of bed in the morning?”

“F**k kid, I don’t know. Breakfast?”

“Breakfast.”

“If I leave now, you promise you can make it home safe and all?” He tossed the filter of his cigarette.

“Yeah.”

The officer drove off, but Daniel sat on the grass a little while longer. His cigarette was still burning and it was almost gone. He finished it off with a quick inhale. The buzz felt fine, whatever. Day had come and the beating sun made him start to sweat. The sweat was joined by tears as they streamed down from his eyes. Both the sweat and the tears mingled with the dirt on his skin to make swirls of mud on his face and arms. Eventually, he got up to leave because he was hungry.

Reviews

[Shy Joe]

I enjoyed your story. I love the humor in it and you paint a very good picture with your writing style. It may just be me but I don't like the way you transition from the first paragraph to the forth one. I under stand the reminiscing part but the way it was done just did not set well with me. It may be the way you start out the second paragraph or the way the first one ends. Also transitioning back from the third to the forth. It is to blunt and does not take the reader into the moment well. But then again that is just me. Very well done. I will defiantly be reading more of your material!