LESSON-ONE GRAVEYARD

A clergy man's philosophical exploration

                            LESSON ONE-GRAVEYARD

               

                                      I don’t know where to begin. Still I must begin somewhere. It all began on that sleepless night on April 2008. I don’t know what prompted me to do so. The senior vicar had been away. As as assistant vicar I was in charge of loneliness that overflowed from the graveyard and pervaded our dwelling.

                       Once you are in perfect loneliness it is natural that we will have a tendency to come out of it. Because loneliness becomes annoying when we go below our optimal level of arousal. So I must warm my whole being with something noisy.

                        Listening to music, alone, excites hidden emotions. Watching TV may end up in masturbation. These two are not welcome for a priest’s life. Thought of praying but I was not in that mood. I must do something different.

                        How the idea of walking alone in the graveyard in midnight entered into my mind, I am not sure. But determined to spend some time with dead I set out. It was pitching dark. I am not going to explain my adventure as they do in horror stories. Actually I was thinking of so called philosophical theories of death that we learned in seminary.

                          As I reached near the entrance of cemetery I saw a candle burning inside through the chinks of the age old door made of wood and tin sheets. As you expect, I was not taken aback. I wanted to see what is happening. I opened the lock of door and pulled it open. The candle was soon blown out and I heard foot steps hurrying northward. It was a moonless night and I began to pace leisurely among the tombs.

                               I do not believe in ghosts and their ilk. But the image of burning candle light in my brain needed clarification. I walked in the north direction, taking care not to step my feet on the dead bodies resting beneath the ground. Again I heard footsteps as if running away from me. I quickened my pace in the same direction. After 15 feet it is the wall of cemetery beyond which nobody can run toward north. The runner will have to move either to left or to right or jump over the wall to other side. I almost hit the wall in the darkness, my hands hit upon a human body not dead but alive.

      

 

          “who are you” I asked grasping his arms in the tight grip of my fist and later I took control of his whole body that he was almost immobile.

             “I am Fr John your superior” the thick sober voice replied

“But father you told me that you are going to see bishop and …”

“Yes I told you…” he intervened before I could finish.

“Then why are you here father”

“Why are you here?” he threw the question upon me. Father John should have smiled. In the darkness I couldn’t make out.

                         We stood there for some time in mutual awareness. A new brotherhood dawned upon us. It was only a part our self learning to have the power to transcend the fear. Fear of loss of worldly things, loss of our possessions; induce our self with transient nature of life on the surface of earth. To woo death long before it actually comes to claim our life. Just like Christ.

            You know, dead can teach you more about life.

Reviews

[the_stoic]

dead can teach us more about life .. how true .. to get detached from all the worldly feelings and realise the futile nature of our lives ..

just a point though - kindly do a bit of editing for the grammatical errors that creep in at times

[Bhavya Kaushik]

This was so original, so thoughtful, deep and something which can teach us so much.
"dead can teach you more about life." - How true and how real these lines are.
Very well written

[GunMetal]

I almost didn't read this, out of fatigue, but I'm sure glad I did. The story was interesting enough to keep me wanting to read it throughout. Very good work.

[Abhinav]

a very powerful write:) excellent work there

[James Watts]

Interesting. I would expand on this, see where you could take it. Be interested seeing where it went myself.

[Huggy Bear]

I agree with Coyote. This is really good.

[Coyote Poetry]

The story is very good. I had to read the story a few times. The description and the conversation was very good on the story. I like your ending. The dead can educate us. Many do.
Coyote