I walk by the water, and I see men digging a grave.
"Oh, we don't know who it's for", they say, "we just dig the graves. Someone'll die here and call it its own.
Its. They're all its once they're dead. It don't matter. Man. Woman. It don't matter. It don't matter once they're dead. They're bodies. Just bodies."
"And all we do is dig the grave for it. The next dead body that comes to die by this side of the Trees. We only ever dig down to here, up the hill to the Trees, along that side, and this side o' the road."
"Who dies by here?", I ask the men.
They are bald, and their beards are tangled and wild, glittering with sweat. They are short, and pale. Their eyebrows are so thick they practically hide their eyes.
"People who wanna lie by the water forever", one says, "Seamen, I guess".
"So those tombstones over there", I ask again, "they're all dead seamen?"
"No, not like that", says another. "Seamen may want to lie by the water forever, but other people too. Other people want to lie here too. People like the water."
"Do you?" I ask him. Them.
"I'll dig my own damned grave wherever I damn well want", says a third, and with that they nod, and resume their digging.
I hear a song no one else can hear.
credits
from Stories from 1339 Crowder's End,
released October 12, 2015
Written, produced and performed by Alex Robshaw
Recorded by Christopher Kelly in Longueuil, QC, Canada, in September 2015
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