Heritage and Shimmer Read Free

such sad shape.”
     
    Weeds knitted throughout the cemetery’s
fencing and nearly shrouded the path of walking stones which had
originally been positioned to guide visitors through the
tombstones. A pungent moss covered the trunks of the dead trees,
and Jayce and Beverly struggled to follow the stone path without
covering their faces in cobwebs. Empty cans and bottles littered
the ground. Paper sacks trapped in trees fluttered in the wind.
Carved initials and spray-painted symbols marred every surface of
wood and stone.
     
    Beverly gripped Jayce’s elbow. “Did you hear
something?”
     
    “That’s just the wind scratching through
these dead trees.”
     
    “No. It was something else.” Beverly squinted
in the direction of the noise. “There’s a man standing at the top
of the rise just ahead of us. I can hear him humming.”
     
    Jayce and Beverly hesitated to approach the
slim, tall figure swinging a weed sickle in the moonlight. The man
hummed a melody neither of them recognized, likely another ditty
that originated in that era before the aliens. The man’s long and
slender arm lifted the sickle high above his head to the beat of
that hummed melody, before that arm descended in a smooth arc that
brought the sickle’s blade through a clump of weeds sprouting at
the edge of the walking path. The tall man gave no indication of
noticing the arrival of the cemetery’s guests as he concentrated on
keeping his work’s rhythm. A cigar glowed from between the man’s
lips, and the illumination of that small fire revealed a haggard
beard of gray littered with the meaty morsels and bread crumbs. The
man’s trousers, frayed at the ankles and marred by holes in the
knees, looked too short for his long legs, and he wore a heavy,
stained jacket though the summer night remained warm and humid. A
cloud of flies buzzed about the man’s pale, bald head, but he
ignored such pests as he continued humming and swinging his weed
sickle at the clumps of weeds crowding the cemetery.
     
    “How does he decide what weeds to swing at?”
Jayce chuckled.
     
    Beverly pinched her fiancé. “Mind your
manners. Haven’t you told me a thousand times that all work is
noble work after the coming of the aliens?”
     
    “Happy to hear that I’m getting through to
you, Bev. But noble work isn’t necessarily practical work. That man
must be swinging a really dull blade, because it doesn’t look like
he’s cut down one weed despite all his effort. Maybe he can
recommend the best place for us to start our tour.”
     
    Beverly gathered her courage and kept pace
with her companion as Jayce strode towards that man swinging his
weed sickle. She watched the man’s long arm swing that blade, and
she wondered how it was that the sickle seemed to pass through the
weeds without so much as bending any of the wild grasses. The man’s
glowing cigar reminded her of her grandfather’s smoking habit, and
of his outlawed, black market cigarettes. Yet she failed to catch a
sniff of tobacco from that glowing cigar as she and Jayce
approached him.
     
    Jayce nearly touched the man’s shoulder as he
reached a hand forward to attract the man’s attention.
     
    “Excuse me, sir. We’re hoping you might be
able to help us with this memorial. All the tombstones make it hard
to decide where to start.”
     
    The man grunted as he let the sickle’s blade
rest upon the earth. Pushing at the small of his back to help
straighten a little taller, the man squared his face at the
visitors, and Beverly betrayed a gasp. The man’s face was far from
a handsome one. The underlining bone structure appeared off-kilter,
so that one cheek rested higher than the other. His nose ran
crookedly along the center of the face, suggesting a violent blow
was responsible for each bend. A pink, welted scar ran down the
man’s forehead and traveled across a filmy, white eye, while the
man’s thick and mangled beard hid much of his lips, until the man
smiled to show a mouth