#drabble Headstones

A metallic rasp draws my gaze upward. A pied crow lurches in the pine’s boughs, its beady eyes glittering, small chips of onyx set among plush feathers.

All details are sharp where I stand among the granite headstones. The markers are polished to a high sheen and I can’t help but wonder who rests here, beyond caring. Some sort of barrier is pierced and the sense of vertigo makes me stumble. What must it be to just not be, to not know anymore?

It’s then that I realise these stones are laid not for the dead but for the living.