Lost When Found

photo prompted short.

She wasn't a friend, or a loved one, a coworker, or a poker buddy. She was just a nobody, who happened to be caught in the rain out in the cemetery. Looking for the closest cover, she found the newly added grave for a recently deceased daughter.

The stranger knelt down, ignoring the bit of mud collecting on her jeans and traced the letter with her fingers. She counted the odd change and cleared the stones that other passerby had kicked onto the marble.

She pulled a few of the fake flowers from her headband and placed them at one corner, a small sentiment felt for the young girl, or perhaps the older daughter still caught in that childlike group think of her parents.

Realizing that the rain had stopped the stranger stood to leave. As she turned, her foot caught a slick patch of marble and she fell wordlessly, her eyes wide with light.

There was no sound but the dull crack of her head on stone, and when the caretaker made his rounds later that night, he would have sworn she had fallen asleep, before checking for her long missing pulse.

He noticed a letter in her pocket and pulled it out to read, hoping for a name. He found a letter from the military, a brief mention of her loved one killed in duty, streaked with tears. As he stood to call police his aged eyes caught one more sight.

A small pebble he remembered a family member leaving on the tombstone. The words engraved read "Miss you." They were filled in with the dark, nearly dry blood of a passing stranger. Someone caught in the same agony as those who had stood there not days before.