A re-post from the original An Eighth Shot of Espresso Blog on Wordpress.
Prompt: "Each garden is a grave." (Richard Howard)
It was the strangest necropolis I'd ever seen, but oddly, the most beautiful.
Each plot was different. A field of lilies of every color. Rows upon rows of black roses. Rolling green grass, each blade dancing in the wind. Still, another bursting with fruit and vegetables ready for the table. A team of gardeners and botanists kept it all in pristine condition. They kept the area free of rot and bugs, brought mulch and black soil to enrich the roots, and set up an irrigation system to nourish life in the midst of death.
"This is the Green Cemetery, where life is reborn," my guide explained. "In a way, the dead live forever and their legacy lives on."
"It makes sense," I said. "Life is a cycle."
He nodded. We made our way on the path between the gravestones. Whole families slept under the earth, their physical bodies providing the building blocks for another generation. Their names were permanently etched in marble, but they weren't dead, not really. They were still here.
"I think anyone would want to lie here, surrounded by such beauty."
There was a slight hesitation in his step, a small quirk in his smile. "Indeed. It is a paradise for those who wish it. The waiting list for a plot here stretches decades, but the wait is worth it."
I ran my fingertips on a particular stone. Three generations of the same family, all here, together for a little more than a century. Their names and lifespans were etched with care. Their accomplishments were rather impressive. Generals, physicians, politicians, entertainers. Of course, they had the luxury of choice in their final resting places.
To give death, give life in return.
To give pain and sorrow, give solace and joy in return.
To give agony, give relief in return.
"That's an interesting epitaph to put on someone's memorial," I said casually.
"Well, like you said yourself: life is a cycle. Or to put it another way, karma has a way to correct an imbalance," he said just as casually. "Ugliness gives way to beauty in the end."
As we made our way through the cemetery, I paid more attention to the names on the stones. Here lay magnates of business, their wives and children. There lay senators and their mistresses. A huge plot devoted to orphans of no name and no importance, but given a place to rest all the same. Another one dedicated to the ones who carried the weight of existence on their shoulders and died forgotten in life, but remembered in death in a mass grave.
The common slept together, the mighty in their own cozy beds.
"Much like life, don't you agree?"
I glanced at my guide. "And that's fair? How?"
"Look around you. In the end, no matter how privileged you are in life, in death, it's all the same. You return to the earth. Now I'm not an expert on souls, I leave that to the mystics and the philosophers. Personally, I like to think it's the ultimate reset, the leveling of the playing field."
I chuckled. "Karma, indeed."
We crested the hill, and it was the perfect spot to see the valley below, with its shadowy ridge and gentle river. The sunlight angled perfectly to highlight the lush bushes and majestic trees surrounding it.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."
"Psalm 23," he said with a chuckle. "King James Version. Very appropriate."
"Well, this is something of a grand tour, isn't it?"
He inclined his head. "Are you afraid?"
I looked over my shoulder at the Green Cemetery, then to the path ahead.
"No."
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