Untitled - June 1993

June, 1993

"Mia!" A teenage boy wandered through the graveyard, shouting for his sister. "I'm not playing. Come out, right now."

Cole could see the little girl, only a few feet from her brother, ducking behind a crumbling tombstone.

"I'm serious, Mia. It's almost time to go." The boy stopped just past his sister’s hiding place. His eyes scanned the cemetery grounds, passing right over Cole where he leaned against his own gravestone. "Fine. I'm leaving, and you're gonna be all alone with the ghosts and zombies."

Mia giggled, not loud enough to draw her brother’s attention, but Cole could hear her. She squatted in the grass, her frilly pink dress marked with light green splotches. Beneath long, dark curls, her face flushed. Her rosy lips pulled tight, revealing a neat row of little white teeth as she grinned behind her brother‘s back.

“I’m serious this time, Mia. If you don’t come out right now, I’m leaving you here by yourself. Do you want the ghosts to get you?”

Still too attached to his rotting corpse to venture more than a few yards beyond his final resting place, Cole had all but forgotten about the innocence of children. Not many came to this place. The few he’d seen usually stood silent beside grief-stricken loved ones, their youthful exuberance crushed beneath the weight of a sorrow they couldn’t understand or appreciate.

Not this child. Mia crept toward her brother, her big brown eyes full of mischief, seemingly unaffected by the solemnity of the occasion. She tip-toed closer, only inches from her frustrated sibling.

Cole watched, waiting for the girl to shout or reach out and grab her brother’s arm. He chuckled, anticipating the boy’s response.

Mia turned her head. Still grinning, she looked Cole right in the eyes and raised a chubby little finger to her lips to shush him.