Late Brightening. Optia in the Season of Summer, Era XIV Post Fractum
Amidst ashen stone pagodas, ancient urns and rows of disfigured gravestones lied seven feet of unearthed ground. Overcast, the sky had released an early downpour as the moss, grass and rubble were still soaked in beads of fresh rain water. The air was humid and oppressive, but a cold wind helped to alleviate any discomfort for the gathering masses. It was time to deliver the final farewells.. A funeral procession was beginning, with a trail of richly robed figures pacing over the remains of their ancestors as they made their way to the hillside convergence. The shrill call of a raven echoed once over the mounds of earth and chiselled rock, creating a lonely tensure as the priest coughed and began his sermon.
The figure in the ground was someone who knew you. Someone who took the time to touch your life, if even for an instant. They poured a cup of water for you when no one else would have. They sowed the seam in your torn jacket while you waited for a bowl of steaming rice. It didn't matter if you were invited or not, the last rites of this untimely death was but a small gesture, but it felt important.. else why were you here stranger?
The shrivelled shopkeeper's cherrywood coffin was slowly lowered into the ground, burdened by the weight of finality as the mournful family braced one another in the outward manifestation of unimaginable internal grief. This wave of nausea moved through the procession in a shuttering silence. A death. A vivacious breath.. so calm and serene in it's simplicity.. Taking the offhand kindness of this smiling ancient for granted awakened an awareness of the gesture's weight in full fervent light.
Standing over the horizon of gravestones, the many onlookers could see a valley of sullen stone blocks, tombs, smashed pagodas and blackened earth.
The humidity seemed to converge here, a line of awakening resonation channelling towards this sanctuary of the dead. There was an overpowering sense of forboding energy laced into the progression of time. A shifting balance, an uneasy stillness that beckoned to the souls of nearby travellers.
Come as you are. Come from any and all direction with your own agendas.. goals, grief, conceit and vanity.. Enter the cemetery and pray you walk out alive when it all ends.. I dare you traveller. I challenge you.