I couldn’t immediately tell up from down, nor left from right. The ringing in my ears drowned any sense that I could speak into myself, and as I attempted to shift my body around to a more comfortable position, a shrieking pain bounced inside of my head from my right temple to my left. There was the distinct acrid taste of blood in my mouth as I slowly began confirming the reality of my survival. I could smell the booze as it soaked into the cracks of the cobblestone beneath me. I knew I had done this to myself, but I prayed that this time I had finally succeeded. As I hoisted myself into a standing position, I was guided by a peculiarly subliminal urgency to walk; I knew why, but I couldn’t recall where to. Smoke was still rising from the barrel of my revolver as I started off through the maze of streets.

I looked up; the broken pub sign dangling from one hook at the corner of the alley was still unfixed, even after all this time. I had the faintest impression that someone had once said something or other that flustered a burly sailor in that pub. I chuckled to myself, not really sure why. This was confidently the right place. I knew she was here, and I hoped that I couldn’t find her.

As the fingers of my left hand massaged the throbbing in my forehead back to the bottom of my skull, my right hand fumbled with the latch of the rusted gate. It swung open, after some effort, at an awkwardly jarred angle, sliding along its defined indentation in the mud. With every breath my nose burned from the crisp chill of the morning fog. It was the kind of fog that slithers over stony walls and into the unkempt grass, glazing the blades in a layer of chilled dew. I left the gate open and began to carefully step on the grassy corners of the path to avoid the mud but surrendered that effort and allowed my already worn boots to sink into the slime. With each step I was deliberate in observing my sense of balance, which was dubious at best.

Above my head the abrupt shriek of a crow forced the throbbing back to the point between my eyes, blinding me with spots of red and purple. In a desperate attempt to once again earn an alleviation of the pain, I bent over, teeth clenched, and furiously rubbed at my throbbing temples. As my fingers touched my head, I could feel the cracked pieces of skull drifting away, exposing soft tissue. A small stream of hot blood trickled from my nostril and traced the decline of my upper lip. Though not immediate, the pain retreated to that small pool at the back of the skull that feeds into the neck like a recoiling serpent. I tried to take a sharp breath, though it prematurely stifled into a coarse cough, and stood upright, wiping the blood from my mouth with the sleeve of my coat. My fingers slipped into my breast pocket, pulling out a flask. It took only a short fumbling with the cap and an extra few seconds of coordination to drain the last drops of whiskey into my sticky, dry mouth. 

Looking around, I could see through orange glow of the early morning fog the vague silhouette of the crow, perched atop the corner of the chapel’s deeply slanted roof. My eyes juggled focus from one to the other until the bird was a clear picture in my sight. The deep black of its feathers was interrupted at intervals by a glossy orange shine. As I studied the stoic figure, its head tilted quizzically at me, and in its marble eyes I read no emotion; it had nothing but apathy for the miserable creature who was painfully and pitifully making his way along the muddied path. Trying my best to stay upright, I held my hand out to balance myself against the trunk of an ancient oak tree at the middle of the yard and began to scan with sore eyes. Reaching from the fog were dozens of stones, each whispering my name in reserved anticipation.

I had no idea where I was, or rather, I knew exactly where I was, but had no understanding of where I was meant to go. I had chosen the spot years ago, but now, in the shadow of fog and pain, it was hidden from me. I ventured from the tree and began trudging through the knotted and tangled grass. In a few steps the dew had soaked through my trousers at the knee; my whole body shivered.

I found the first stone and knelt before it. Wiping away a layer of grime and moss, I could faintly read the engraving: 

Sarah Jackson

1872-1923

Beloved Wife and Mother

It was a good name, as far as names go, but not the right name. I felt my knees buckle as I tried to stand again, so I surrendered to the frailty of my body and continued on my hands and knees to the next grave. Again, I felt no connection as I read the inscription, and so continued in that way, moving from headstone to headstone within the confines of the rusted gate and stone walls, looking for someone I knew I had known.

I read each name aloud, but none commanded the tongue, lips, or throat to move in such a way that procured an expected rush of memory. None of those names called out for her as I knew I must have once done. Each name fell deaf on my ears, a lost character in an unread novel. Even my own voice sounded to me foreign, disconnected, disembodied. I don’t know how long I dug for this familiar stranger in the mud and grass.

People generally cry in graveyards. But there was no patch of soil to water with my tears, and no bucket of memories to draw those tears from the well of my emotions. If I had a flower to place, I had no clue in which stone’s shade it needed to rest, and with that I knew that I had finally done it: she, whoever she had once been, was not even a memory.