"Her laugh was beautiful," he says, sitting on his gravestone, picking at the grass. "Her hair was so red," he stands up and kicks over the baby angel statue sitting over where he is resting, eternally. "She'd never go out with me," he sighs, and lays back on the cool winter graveyard grass.
"Let me guess, it's 'cause your dead right?"
"Shut up, Claude! I think I'm in love."
Claude Vivian, a housewife who died of polio in 1929, sits beside Floyd on the grass.
"She is lovely isn't she," Claude picks up a synthetic flower that's blown away from its grave and fiddles with it.
"Oh, man, did you hear her laugh, I nearly died- or I nearly lived, or-"
"She had a lovely laugh, Floyd," Claude playfully hits him.
"I wonder what her name is," he sighs.
"Her best friend's name was Alex," Claude says, gesturing to a grave up on the hill. Claude and Floyd's grave were on the downward slope of Cemetery Hill.
"Her best friend is dead?" Floyd sits up and shields the sun from his eyes, trying to glimpse Alex's grave.
"She died last year," Claude says, "I saw the funeral. They buried her in a gorgeous purple dress," Claude glares down at her yellow checkered dress. She used to wear it when she cleaned her house; before polio disabled her. "Why'd my dumb husband bury me in this old thing!" Claude collapses onto the ground.
"She wore a purple scarf, did you see her purple scarf?" Floyd turns to Claude and throws a look of pity her way. He lays down next to her and puts his arm around her.
"It's ok, Claude. You look pretty in it."
"You think so?"
"Have you ever talked to Alex? Do you think she'll tell me her name?"
Claude glares at Floyd.
"I don't know," she sits up and shuffles toward her grave.
"I'm gonna go talk to her,"
"Go ahead," Claude stands up and brushes dirt of her dress. "I'm going to visit Mary."
"I'll see ya later Claudey!" He runs up the hill, not looking back."
"See ya later Floydy," She watches Floyd run up the hill. "Good luck."
YOU ARE READING
Floyd Charles Van Horn III
ParanormalThe struggle of leaving things in the past and moving on told by one alive and three dead people. •this story an get a little graphic; it's a story using death as a platform, after all.•
