THE RELIC GUILD (and other stories) Updated regularly.

GRAVEMAKER

There is snow on the ground.
The unbroken line of a funeral procession crawls before the pavement: sleek, beetle-black hearses growling with the impatience of their symbiotic masters. High above, the sun's dull glow struggles to give warmth and light, flagging as clouds threaten to grey the sky.
The limousine is coming.
It follows the hearses like a voyeur, a clandestine stalker, glinting metallically white, lurking at the back. It is patient, respectfully distant, inching along slippery tracks. Inexorable, the limousine has more time than a clock.
The interior might be warm.
But it is cold outside, the coldest it will get this winter. And it will be the last. Spring will never arrive; summer and autumn are seasons of the past. There will be no more changes; no more movies, books and music; no more sex, drugs and PMT.
The limousine's passenger door opens.
And as the sun's weak smile is veiled, a faceless horde sweeps by, jostling with purpose, collected breath frozen to mists of industrial waste. The horde is ignorant, its apathy palpable. It longs to be where it is not, while the bruised sky unleashes another flurry of fallout.
The passenger door closes.
The traffic does little to slow the funeral procession; instinctively, it gives way on the cracked-ice-road. Still at the back, ever behind, the limousine keeps pace. Its heater does little to warm the air inside, for there is only resignation to circulate, and thickly at that. "There are flowers on a box-" the radio whispers "-and inside is you . . ." Windscreen wipers blink. Sleep-dust gathers into corners.
The city is left behind.
Milling claustrophobia morphs to the expansive illusion of freedom. Trees pass by: spindly, barren umbrella frames. Fresh and pure flakes settle and hide the used and filthy. Through a static-dashed view, the last hearse chugs dirty fog to grime the newborn whiteness. The path winds, climbing higher, higher all the time until . . . what? The limousine could crack the ground if it fell? The air could run out? The moon could be touched?
A book will never be finished.
The plot had thickened in chapter fifteen, the dry pages clutched so hard, a spine cracked and snapped. A leather marker conceals the read from the unread beside a half-empty glass of water, a snubbed candle, a dangling noose and vulgar stains upon threadbare carpet.
The destination is reached.
The smooth, hypnotic rumble becomes the tell-tale crunch of shingle. Like the road into a mouthful of broken teeth, the driveway slices through fields of crooked tombstones. Cemetery guardians watch the limousine's progress: a blur of angels, knights, mythic maidens, devoid of breath or conversation, but always with judgement. Ahead, the funeral procession congregates like a flock of magpies.
The limousine has stopped.
When the engine dies, so does the radio. When the radio dies, so does the heater. The wind is hollow and distant. The limousine is as patient with delivery as it was on pick-up.
The passenger door opens.
The chill is bitter, more so than ever. Hunched bodies, darkly dressed, file into drone-lines, heading for a newly dug pit. The faint light fades. The sound of anguish mingles with the wind's gentle moaning. Eyes moistened in grief for an absent . . . Daughter? Sister? Aunt? Friend? Lover? Junky? Thief? Whore? The faceless horde would be welcome here: a disguise, an escape, an unexceptional alternative.
The passenger door closes.
Stilettos sink through snow and earth; each step a stabbing reminder of expensive shoes never to be worn again; each step closer to the pit surrounded by darkly-cold and white-flecked drones; each step bringing a different face, down-turned, silent and listening; each step unseen but mourned. Religious words celebrate life and lie about the deep cherishing of the gravely missed.
A coffin is lowered.
Fistfuls of dirt scratch over wood. Ghoulish eyes scour the congregation that dares not look down. Every face is loved or hated, rarely liked in passing, but always remembered. Numbers diminish, one departure inspiring another. The congregation heads to amass in a different place, a warmer place, a place of sandwiches, stiff drinks, respectful hushes and remember whens.
The gravemakers are coming.
In the distance, the last hearse disappears, rushing through the present, heading for the future, the past firmly left behind. In the wake of a burning waste-cloud, the limousine prepares to follow, eager to wait at the back once more. Inexorable, it has more time than a clock.
The gravemakers arrive.
Like butchers eager to joint a dead beast, they stab at a mound of Earth-flesh, shovelling spadefuls of muddy guts into the pit: slice follows rustle follows slice follows rustle . . . On a sodden patch of green, left by the feet of many, snow falls, heavier than before, as if rushing to hide this embarrassing splash of colour. It is cold outside, the coldest it will get this winter. And it will be the last.
The limousine has gone.

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