Emma lived with her widowed father. He worked for a small software company in the town. After Corona, he often used to work from home to save time and energy.
" Dad, come on, we have to go...How long will you take?" said Emma.
"Can't help when I am getting carried with office load", replied Arnold (her dad).
She sat on a chair beside him. Arnold looked frustrated. Even though he wanted to get out of this, he couldn't. During the lockdown, software companies have removed people they think aren't good enough. It took half an hour to shut down. While Emma plucked some beautiful flowers from the small garden around the house, Arnold was getting ready. She arranged them in bouquet. Arnold drove toward a place a little far from their town.
The air was crisp and carried a poignant mix of sadness and nostalgia as Emma and her father walked towards the secluded cemetery. It was an annual tradition, a day dedicated to remembering her mother, who had passed away when Emma was just a child. The cemetery had always felt like a different, calm, sad world surrounded by thick woods.
'Shadowed Vale Memorial Park', said a large metal arc supported by brick pillars. Its gates, wrought iron twisted and rusted by time, creak mournfully in the wind as if whispered. The once well-tended paths are now overgrown, with weeds and brambles encroaching. It's a place where history whispers through the rustling leaves. Ancient, moss-covered tombstones lean slightly, inscriptions worn by the elements, making some names and dates barely legible, while others have stood the test of time, their etchings clear and sorrowful reminders of lives once lived.
As they placed flowers on her mother's tomb, Emma felt the weight of memories and unspoken words. Her father, noticing her being low, suggested she walk around to clear her mind while he stayed behind to have a few moments alone with his thoughts and his late wife.
Emma started walking towards the cemetery's edge, letting her feet guide her along the familiar path. However, today, her mind was elsewhere, tangled in memories of her mother's soft laughter and the stories she used to tell. She looked at her dad; tears poured from his eyes. He couldn't want his wife back more. The Coronavirus seized her away from him. His work and tension never made him realize how little he spent with her. However, after she passed, he realized and often visited this place to spend time with her grave.
Suddenly, my Arnold phone rang. As usual, it was from the workplace for an urgent meeting. He ran towards the car without even wiping his face. When Emma caught her father about to take off, she ran shrieking, but Arnold had sat in the car talking to someone. Emma tripped, and before she could even reach Arnold was gone.
She got up quickly and ran, but the car went quickly. Now, how would a ten-year-old girl walk so long?
She instead decided to wait waiting for him to return. The vicinity was cloaked in perpetual twilight, casting long, ominous shadows of shaded trees that stretched like grasping fingers all over....
YOU ARE READING
THE NIGHT AT THE CEMETERY
Mystery / ThrillerEmma and her father, Arnold, visit a secluded cemetery to honour her mother's memory, who passed away in the coronavirus pandemic. Burdened by his job in a small software company couldn't give time to his family. Their visit to the cemetery, a place...
