(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(text-style:"smear")[[[A Ghost in the Graveyard| intro 1]]
by Cole Erickson]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[She stares at you, gripping onto her father’s pant leg. Her squeal startles you and you drop the frame. It falls into the grass and by the time the father peers into the gloomy graveyard, he looks right through you.
“I saw a picture fly,” she says. He packs up his little girl, gets in the car, and [[drives away.|intro 6]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[The little girl (text-style:"rumble")[[shrieks!|intro 5]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[In the gravel parking lot just outside the fence, a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter are getting into their car. You try to call to them. They do not respond. The mother sits in the passenger seat on her phone. The father is too busy strapping his son into his carseat. The little girl in the pink tutu waits patiently beside her father, inching closer as the darkness spills out from the [[trees.|intro 3]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You wake at dusk. The sun fades over the trees.
You are standing in the grass of a graveyard.
When you look down, there are [[no legs.|intro 2]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[At a nearby grave, you pick up a portrait of a woman.
You tilt the frame so the glass reflects your face, but… there’s nothing. Only the dim blue sky behind where your [[head should be.|intro 4]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You are alone. It is dark. Something tells you that you are not alive anymore, that you need to find your grave before the sun rises and [[you fade away…|starting page]]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"<==")[[Move Left|Move Left]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"=><=")[[Examine the Portrait|Examine Portrait]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"==>")[[Move Right|Move Right]]
|==|
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You find a large headstone surrounded by American flags and a WWII plaque. You check your relfection in the stone's smooth granite face. But still, you cannot see yourself. You touch the rough outer edge of the stone.
[[You feel nothing.|Randolph Headstone]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[To the right, you find a rosy colored headstone. Canisters of hairspray stand along the base of the grave. You think about your own hair. //Was it short? Long?// You think that hair length might help you determine if you were a boy or a girl. You reach up to touch your hair, but [[you swipe right through your own head.|Cheryl Headstone]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You crouch down and pick up the portait from the grass. It is of a woman with curly red hair. She looks deeply into the camera. //[[Was this me?|Portrait Stone]]//]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You lay down in front of the headstone. You stare into the dark sky. Nothing happens. You are not at peace. This is not your grave. [[You stand up.|Randolph Headstone]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(b4r:"dashed")+(b4r-colour:grey)[''Randolph "Randy" Leadstetter''
(text-style:"smear")[March](click-replace:"March")[//March seems oddly familiar...//] 12 1923 - December (text-style:"smear")[16] (click-replace:"16")[//So does sixteen...//] 2005
//Rany was a loyal husband and father. He served in WWII in the 24th Infantry Division. He is an honored hero. May he rest peacefully.//]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"<==")[[Rest in Peace|RIP WWII]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"==>")[[Move Right|starting page]]
|==|
(text-color:white)+(align:"=><=")+(if:visits >= 3)[[Move Down|Move Down]](text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(b4r:"dashed")+(b4r-colour:grey)[''Cheryl Hill''
September (text-style:"smear")[29](click-replace:"29")[//Something seems familiar about 29//] 1945 - October 2 2015
//Daughter, (text-style:"smear")[sister](click-replace:"sister")[Was I a sister? Or, did I have a sister?], and beloved community member, Cherri loved her family and self-started salon "Hair by Cher." She was full of life and laughter and always treated her customers as family.//]
(text-color:white)+(align:"=><=")+(if:visits >= 3)[[Move Up|Move Up]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"<==")[[Move Left|starting page]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"==>")[[Rest in Peace|RIP Cheryl]]
|==|
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//Maybe my name was Cheryl... Cherri?//
You lay down in the dewy grass. Crickets chirp in the woods. Nothing happens. This is not your grave.
[[You stand up.|Cheryl Headstone]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You place the frame back on the grave. You lay down. You close your eyes. You imagine the image of the woman superimposed on your face. //But was I even a woman?//
//Maybe I was a man?// Nothing happens. [[You stand up.|Not Grave]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[[This is not your grave.|starting page]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You walk a little ways down the graveyard. The night is so black, but you feel that time is moving strangely fast. A bird caws from a scraggly tree. As you keep walking, you look for the bird. Then suddenly you trip over a very old, very small, headstone. You hit the ground. [[But nothing hurts.|Cassandra Headstone]]](text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(b4r:"dashed")+(b4r-colour:grey)[''Cassandra Everlong''
February 26 18(text-style:"smear")[25](click-replace:"25")[// the number 25 is so familiar, I can almost remember...//] - May 13 1830
//Lamb of the earth.
Angel in the sky.
Live for so long,
Sleep when we die.//]
(text-color:white)+(align:"=><=")[[Move Up|Move Left]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"<==")[[Rest in Peace|RIP Cassandra]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"==>")[[Move Right|starting page]]
|==|
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//She was so young. Maybe she was me. Maybe I was so young//.
You lay down, closing your eyes. In the distance, a wooshing begins. //It's happening. It's finally happening...//The wooshing gets louder. When you open your eyes, the stars are gone. You are still in the graveyard. Clouds block out the sky. Rain falls around you, but you are dry. [[This was not your grave.|The Storm]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[A few paces towards the top of the graveyard, you find a long marker set into the ground. There are two names, both with scratch marks across them. It looks like someone took a rock and tried to etch them out. Beside the headstone, there is a host of [[small colorful flags.|Leonard/Sullivan Headstone]]]
=||=
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(b4r:"dashed")+(b4r-colour:grey)[''Leonard Stuller''
(align:"<==")[April 17 1971 -]//❤︎//
]
=||=
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(b4r:"dashed")+(b4r-colour:grey)[''Sullivan Denton''
(text-style:"smear")[June](click-replace:"June")[//I can feel the warmth of June...//] 7 1970 - April 9 1992
//❤︎//
// Loving partner, advocate, and AIDS fighter//]
|=|
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[//Together, forever, in sickness and in health.
(text-style:"smear")[Partners](click-replace:"Partners")[Was I...queer, like them?] in life and beyond.//]
(text-color:white)+(align:"=><=")[[Move Down|Move Right]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"<==")[[Move Left|starting page]]
=||=
(text-color:white)+(align:"==>")[[Rest in Peace|RIP Leonard/Sullivan]]
|==|
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You lay before Sullivan's grave. Possibly //MY// grave, you correct yourself. You close your eyes. In the distance, a wooshing begins. //It's happening. It's finally happening...//The sound gets louder. When you open your eyes, you are still in the graveyard, not at peace. Clouds block out the sky. Rain falls around you. But you are dry. [[This is not your grave.|The Storm]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[The wooshing is now a roar. Wind thrashes through the trees. Leaves fly in rainy gusts. High above, branches snap. A sharp limb unhooks from an oak, falls, and piecers your chest. You gasp, but feel nothing. It lodges in the soft, muddy ground. You run through the torrent graveyard, screaming. But no one hears you. You fling yourself on the ground and you stay there, [[crying softly through your translucent hands.|The Morning]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[Hours pass in what seems like seconds. The storm subsides. Calm falls over the graveyard and you stop crying. A warmth comes over your back. It feels nice, and you let it start to carry you away... [[into a lightness...|The Morning 2]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[[Nooo!|The Morning 3]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You resist the warmth. You realize it's the sun rising above the trees. Morning is here and you haven't found your grave. [[A stoney, crunching sound approaches.|The Father]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[A familiar car parks outside the cemetary gates. It's the father from before, except he is alone. He walks across the yard, stepping over fallen branches and storm-blown wreaths and flowers. You follow him so closely that you think he feels you. He turns, looks at you—looks through you—[[then keeps walking.|The Father 2]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[He crouches in front of a grave you never noticed before. It is covered in wet leaves and splintered branches.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he says. "I got you."
[[He begins to swipe away the debris.|Final Grave]]]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(b4r:"dashed")+(b4r-colour:grey)+(text-style:"smear")[TWIGS (click-replace:"TWIGS")[Ranoma] LEAVES (click-replace:"LEAVES")[Jackson]
MUD (click-replace:"MUD")[June 16] BRANCHES(click-replace:"BRANCHES")[1941 - ] PINE NEEDLES(click-replace:"PINE NEEDLES")[March 29] DIRT(click-replace:"DIRT")[2025]
BARK SHREDS(click-replace:"BARK SHREDS")[//Mother, sister,
and loving wife//]]
(text-color:white)+(align:"=><=")+(more:)[[[Rest in Peace|Father Speech]]](text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(text-style:"smear")[//“I’m sorry Mom. I’m so sorry I never understood you. Sarah loves you just as much as I do. I couldn’t see that before. But I see that now. I see how much she actually cared about you when I could not. I see now how much you cared for each other. I’m sorry I couldn’t let you two actaully love each other. I was just so angry about you and Dad, and I...”//](text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[The father swipes away a tear.](text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(text-style:"smear")[//“You’re gone now. You probably can't hear me anyway. But I miss you. We all miss you. And I love you, [[Mom|Hand]].”//]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[You place a hand on his shoulder. He reaches up. He places his hand on yours. It is warm.](text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(text-style:"smear")[//“I feel you. [[I can really feel you|Hand 2]].”//]
(text-color:"white")+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")+(text-style:"smear")[[You gasp—|Title Page]]