The Graveyard Experience

The sun was setting into its shaded pink a little too quickly; an uncomfortable darkness was only round the corner, waiting to cement its place in the sky. Tombstones were placed sporadically, each one growing excessive amounts of mould and moss – it truly depressed me, the thought that these deceased humans and their buried corpses weren’t being taken care of. They lived their entire lives, only for their graves – of which might have been the only proof of their existence in a century’s time – to tarnish their legacies. Even the grass growing inside the graveyard was not at all looked after, abysmally kept. Some blades were razor thin, whereas others were so long that their own weight forced them into a hunch; some were a vibrant green, others turned desert-yellow, in desperate need of hydration. However I will admit, it was an apposite aura for the situation I’d found myself in.

    I was palsied, on my knees, my wrists tied to my feet behind me – I had no way of standing. Rope, I said, recognising the course material and for some reason proud of myself for it. The sun dissipated then, and the moon and stars had taken its place.

    I noticed to my left another man in exactly the same position as me, limbs tied and all. He had buzzed black hair and a far off, dissociative look across his face; he seemed exhausted, but his steady breathing told me that he wasn’t at all stressed about the situation; come to think of it, neither was I. Upon further inspection, looking past him, I noticed there were even more men, nine including him, lined up in a row, all tied up too. What struck me most was that they all had the same expression: lax with hints of innocuity. There wasn’t much noticeable about any of them, either. They all looked average, nothing to rave about. A couple wore a shirt and tie, some were in pyjamas and a dressing gown, while the rest – including me – wore plain coloured T-shirts.

    And then he came from around the corner. Him. This new, surreptitious, unbound man; this extravagant Enigma with hazel eyes beyond his years; bandages wrapped around parts of his pallid, larger-than-life face; a roughed up, scruffy brown jacket; and a pair of heavy-duty lumberjack boots. Despite his small limp, his step was timed perfectly as he walked past the tombstones and the mishmash of grass with the utmost confidence.

    The three lampposts on the street next to us didn’t provide much light, but it was enough for me to spot an Owl atop one of them turn its head to watch us. We were to put on a show for the Owl, our only audience member. How lucky we were.

    A pinching breeze hit all ten of us at the same time and the Enigma approached the first rope-tied stranger (I was last in line). He stood directly in front of the first man and stared down at him without any semblance of emotion. The moon shone behind him and created a blacked-out silhouette which only served to exude his dominance, a force to be reckoned with.

    The first man looked up at the Enigma with a sorrow I recognised all too well – utter hopelessness, a silent cry for help. His eyebrows curved down the side of his face and his bottom lip twitched forever downwards. It seemed to me that he had been carrying this feeling for a long time. An excruciatingly long time.

    From inside his own brown jacket, the Enigma slowly pulled out an apparatus (I couldn’t quite tell what it was, not whilst shrouded in the dim). He didn’t look at it, only manoeuvred it casually, one foot behind the other, his head tilted and his eyes squinted. He pointed the item towards the man’s head with one-handed delicacy.

    It was at this point that I realised the item in question was a gun.

    Within mere seconds of coming to this realisation, there was a bang and a bullet dug itself through the first man’s head. The weight of his sorrow had been lifted. His body lay on its back, a slight smirk relishing his deceased face. The smoke from the gun rose and curled towards the moon, whilst the loud noise rang inexorably through mine and everyone else’s ears. I scrunched my eyelids and shook my head in an attempt to be rid of the high pitched, tinnitus-ridden ringing in my ears, and as I did so, the Enigma paced himself towards the next guy.

    This one was dressed in his pyjamas and a dressing gown, suiting his tired, eye-bagged face, and although a dead body was lying next to his own very much alive one, he didn’t seem at all bothered. In fact, the only expression he performed was a yawn. That was it. He locked his eyes onto the Enigma’s and said, ‘Get on with it, please.’

    Naturally, he was shot.

    The next man was unique in that he seemed to be the only one who did not want to be here. His face flung about, jolting from left to right in the hopes of finding a way out. The clothes he’d picked out were just as boring and lifeless as mine; he didn’t stand out, not here nor anywhere. He was simply a passer-by, a blended in, unnoticeable extra hired for a Channel Five flop. He was someone expendable, or at least, that’s how he viewed himself but would never admit it.

    ‘Help!’ he squirmed. ‘Help me! I am someone. I am! I have to be!’ He then looked to the rest of us, wide-eyed, tears crashing down his cheeks, ‘Please, guys… Why are you all just sitting there? Is this what you want? Do you want this?’ His voice began breaking on each syllable. His eyes closed and his head shook in rejection of the gun aimed at him. ‘God! Help me, please!’

    The buzzed, black-haired man to my left let out a faint chuckle, his shoulders bouncing up and down as he stared down the line like the rest of us. He then turned to me and said, ‘Tell us how you really feel, am I right?’

    I smirked in response.

    So, the crying man cried some more, and was swiftly put to rest.

    I gazed over at the Owl as the Enigma made his way towards the fourth man. I could see it making mental notes on the situation, perhaps even a few critiques. Its shiny white and spotted brown feathers all stayed in place as its head spun about and tilted, making sure to witness every angle of the performance.

    The buzzed man turned to me again. ‘How’re you feeling about all of this?’ he asked, nonchalant. This wasn’t his first rodeo, a seasoned professional in his absolute element.

    I told him that I didn’t really know how I felt.

    ‘Are you scared?’ he pushed.

    No, for some reason I wasn’t scared.

    ‘Then, how do you feel?’

    I told him that, more than anything, I was intrigued.

    ‘That’s not uncommon,’ he said, and another gunshot rang. ‘I wouldn’t bother with it if I were you – with figuring it out, I mean. Most men who wound up here stopped doing that a long time ago.’ He paused for a second. ‘What’s your name, man?’

    I told him my name and then asked for his.

    ‘You can just call me Buzz, not that it matters.’

    What an appropriate name, I thought. Buzz inhaled deeply through the nostrils and closed his eyes. His face rose into the air in appreciation of the cold breeze which was irritating everyone else; he looked relaxed, but I couldn’t relate. I was too pent up on anticipation and nerves. Not fear, for some reason though. Not in the least.

    Another bullet was shot into the fifth man’s head and Buzz remained perfectly still, unphased as he stared back into a void. ‘I’m so tired,’ he confessed.

    I didn’t know how to respond; I just watched as his thoughts curled back into his head.

    My attention shifted back over to the Enigma, who was more than ready to put an end to the sixth guy. This one clearly had no desire to get shot to death, but he didn’t protest it; he didn’t put up a fight or beg for fifty different gods to save him. No, he just went along with it.

    ‘Can I have one last cigarette?’ he asked the Enigma, coolly.

    The Enigma stared for a second, deciding whether sixth was worthy of inhaling his tobacco – it was like watching someone decide if his dog deserved a treat. After a few seconds of careful deliberation, the Enigma reached inside his coat, placed a cigarette in the sixth guy’s mouth, and lit it. The sixth guy closed his eyes, took one long drag, inhaled, exhaled, and spat it out onto the floor. He thanked the Enigma, and then was promptly shot in the head. Bloody parts of his brain flung out of a mushy hole, and with it, gravity pummelled his body to the ground.

    What stood out to me was that, even after watching the Enigma kill five other men, he still thanked him.

    ‘He gets it,’ mumbled Buzz. ‘He just went with it. You’ve got to be like that in these situations. Be like water.’

    I asked if he was okay. I think part of him wanted to be like the sixth guy, jealous of his ability to remain so relaxed in this situation. I shared the sentiment, of course; it’s only natural to feel upstaged sometimes.

    ‘I’m just tired,’ he said. ‘I’m no longer intrigued by any of this, which is good, I think. I stopped trying to figure this out a long time ago. I think that’s the first step. But still, I’m fucking scared. I don’t know anything, and that guy knew exactly how to handle it. I bet he won’t come back here again, now that he knows. I don’t know how to do it. Don’t get me wrong, I know what to do, I just don’t know how. No one ever tells you how. I am fucking incompetent.’

    The seventh man was shot, and not long after, so was the eighth.

    Now it was Buzz’s turn.

    The Enigma aimed the gun at Buzz’s head, just like he did with everyone else, except this time he waited a few more seconds and tilted his head, as if to ask Buzz a question. It was interesting to see the Enigma so up close now: the skin on his left cheek was dented and scarred; his eyes, whilst brown, somehow had an inherently bright shine to them; and his brown, unkempt hair was rather unctuous.

    Buzz looked over to me mere seconds before the gun was to be fired into his head, and said through a relieving sigh, ‘Let me know how it goes.’

    And he was gone, consciousness evaporated.

    Finally, I thought to myself, it’s my turn. In retrospect, it was quite puzzling that I thought ‘finally’, because I didn’t really want to die. I didn’t want to stop existing, but this was something I’d been anticipating for nine gunshots now. I was the tenth in line. The final one.

    I looked up to the Enigma and saw his face begin to distort, certain corners and edges of his face grew and expanded and shrank as he stared me down. A psychedelic g-force pressed upon me as he lifted the gun to my head, forcing me to look at his face which grew more and more pallid. He looked just as tired as his victims, which led me to ask myself: Do I look tired, too? Is my voice nothing more than a droning, irritating, white noise that impedes on the company of others? People must groan at the very sight of me. A nothing person, they must think. Expendable. How dare I view myself as anything more than that?

    The Enigma, in an unexpected turn of events, now expressed a whole new emotion by way of his outwardly curving brows, one he hadn’t revealed to the others: sympathy. Could he hear my thoughts? Did he, of all people, understand? I wondered if he only showed this to me because we were the only two left in the graveyard – that is, if you don’t include the Owl, who was still watching with the same amount of intrigue, leant forwards for a clearer view.

    The Enigma’s warped, distorted face simmered, and amongst all of his impurities, he actually had a kind and endearing face… But still, he was aiming a gun at my head, and from his mouth, through a tone that was avuncular and even advisable, as though he was looking out for me, he said: ‘Pretend it’s real.’

    I was dumbfounded, and not long after, I was shot.