Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky

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In Sunday’s lengthening shadows, neighborhood children lounge by the hip-high brick wall that surrounds the town cemetery and they tell strange stories to stall the night’s trundle. “Listen,” they say. “Wait, listen.” Their neighborhood is boring and their houses are boring and their parents are boring. One points, saying, “That grave is empty,” and it is. They’ve heard all of these stories before — at the end of a dark hall during a church lock-in, from cousins on a dock at the lake, in hushes between songs during choir practice, on walks home from school, during the roar of lunch, in the backseats of buses, over telephones with coiling cords tangling around wrists. And now, with the last exhalation of summer they tell them again.

“My brother says—”

At the far end of the cemetery, there is a man lingering along the edge of the shadow cast by the maples. The children cackle and socks slip down ankles. They caw, guffawing, leaping and leaning, kicking stones to quell rushing blood and billows of nervous laughter. The man has stopped by a marble mausoleum and he just stands and watches the children. In the distance unseen cars pass and pop songs boom. They sneak glances to try and tell who it is standing behind the stones, but they never get a good look at him and later when they talk about it, they all remember something different. And then summer is gone before they know it and it is fall. “Look,” they say. “Listen.” Stories without end or ending. This was the first summer they spent listening to songs to which they are not allowed to listen. They holler out car windows at a pitiful-looking woman walking by the cemetery gate, filthy hair and grim face comically made-up. Their lungs rip with laughter and red cheeks wet.

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