Silver Meadow's Stories

A Short Story by Silver Meadow

1.

The harp strums around two in the morning, with notes coloring the night softly. Strings wrapping around each headstone, mausoleum, and filtering through my window. This harp interrupts my reading; my studies. Most college students work retail or fight tooth and nail for unpaid internships—I just work nights at Lament’s End Cemetery as ‘the watchman,’ which means call the actual authorities if kids are vandalising or thieves aren’t respecting those at rest.

Pretty straightforward: watch the cameras and go for a stroll every hour (sometimes I don’t).

Most nights, I’m plagued by math and science just to be suffocated by more in the morning. That’s what it takes to become an engineer, but what’s construction without ethics? So tonight, I’m reading a collection of Greek myths for a five paged essay due tomorrow. I considered using A.I. as if English professors couldn’t sniff that generative ink out from anywhere. Even if they floated in the waters of Point Nemo. Automatic failure.

I check the security cameras, maybe someone is serenading their deceased loved one? A woman with one thick braid in her hair sits before a tombstone, strumming this harp, fingers cascading delicately as a spider weaving its web. She’s breaking the city’s noise ordinance in a poetic way. Who am I to judge?

Her instrument glints in the moonlight, but her back is turned to the camera. Only her long black dress and braid with the blue ribbon tied in it is visible. This music floats under the night sky as gooseflesh sprouts on my arms. I feel my heart drawing near this sound, coaxing my legs to move towards it.

Her face turns to the camera, eyes dark and round, innocent. “Aaron…”

She sings my name.

2.

I don’t believe in ghost…however, I do wonder if purgatory exists and if that’s where the souls with uncompleted work go; i’ve never been on the lookout for paranormal activity, not even here. My dad told me that Black men shouldn’t investigate ghostly matters if they did exist, “ask any horror movie ever created, Black man go check out the inciting incident” he mocked. Dad. It’s my job. This woman isn’t a ghost and she called my name; inspired my feet to move to the harp.

She poses no threat.

She continues to strum under the spotlight my lantern creates. The cemetery gets pretty dark at night, with only a few lamp posts with fewer functional bulbs illuminating the graves. Yet this doesn’t scare me: failing classes and student loans do. The woman looks up from her instrument but continues to play. No sweat on her brow. This harp somehow doesn’t crush her bony shoulder as it stretches a few feet above her head.

She grins with crow’s feet wrinkling on either side of her face, but her skin has a youthful radiance and would glow brighter when the morning comes. “Aaron,” she says. “If I play a song for you, will you let him go?” The woman nudges her head in the direction of this withered tombstone she’s sweeping for. Sitting in the corner of the cemetery. The only grave without company.

No name engraved.

I squint my eyes at her. “How you know my name?”

The woman giggles at this. “I know your name because I know you’ll like this song…hopefully you’ll release him after hearing it.”

“Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Any afterlife affairs gotta be taken up with God.”

“Which one?” she decrescendos to where the harp is a mere whisper. “God, God? You’ll be lucky if you meet Him.”

I knew coming out here was a bad idea, I just couldn’t help it. When she whispered my name I was entranced in a way music never evoked. So I back away slowly. “Ain’t no crime here. Have a good rest of your night.”

“Wait.” my feet plant at her command. “He was a good man…wanna know how he died?”

By the way there’s only movement in my hand, violently rattling this lantern, it seems I don’t have a choice.

“Gas station sushi.” she crescendos harshly. I can’t believe a harp could create such a violent sound. “Now,” she says, “I present to you your favorite song, ‘Orpheus’ Final Plea.’

3.

Finally, her hands blend the last chord then rests in her lap. “What do you say?”

I applaud her finger dexterity—and she’s right, I do enjoy the song.

The title, ‘Orpheus’ Final Plea,’ reminds me of all the Greek myths and that paper due tomorrow. That Orpheus guy ventured into the underworld in hopes of restoring his deceased wife’s vitality, strumming his lyre in a tune that brought the God of the Underworld to tears. So emotionally moved he allowed Orpheus to lead his wife, Eurydice, to the upperworld under one condition: no looking back. No ensuring that Hades’ olive branch wasn’t yet another one of his deceptive snares.

Suffocated by doubt, right before Orpheus reached the upperworld, he turned back, locking eyes with Eurydice, thus plummeting her back into Hades’ grasp.

It’s the only story I’ve fully retained in summary form. Sadly, my professor wants us to ‘close read it.’ all i’m getting is Hades is too conditional.

I’m better at memorizing formulas and practical construction fundamentals. Not too big on tragedies.

Let’s hope this mystery harp lady is inclined to the humanities. “I say, are you good at analyzing stories, Greek mythology? And maybe writing a five paged paper?”

She laughs to herself while silently plucking the strings. “You want me to write your paper that’s due tomorrow in exchange for his freedom, right?”

I didn’t tell her all of that but I nod anyway. “And,” I add. “I want to know who i’m saving.”

She sighs; returns to strumming the same song played from earlier. “Go look for yourself.”

Finally, free will is granted back and I crouch over the tombstone:

In Loving Memory of Aaron Jones

2004-2024

4.

“What? I’m not dead.” We both say at the same time.

“We do this every night, Aaron.”

I’m alive. Everyday I go to class, eat, work, then pray I could sleep for at least two hours before it all starts again—but this harp and this woman? They aren’t in this cylical plague. Maybe she’s tripping on something or my sleep deprivation has pried my eyes open to hallucinations. Here I am wasting time and asking strangers to write my paper. Better off with A.I.

I yank my lantern away from the tombstone. “This can’t be true.”

The woman shrugs. “Ever wonder why you always got that essay due tomorrow? Why you can’t just finish your work on your own? Your obstinance is why the sun sets and rises decoratively.”

The way she says ‘decoratively’ strikes a chord in my nervous system. “Who are you?”

She stops playing, standing up, and digging the base of her instrument into the soft dirt. “You know, you never pleaded with me. We both know why.” She inhales this sharp nightly air. “Accept it so you can move on.”

I march up to her; she doesn’t seem bothered at all. “Accept what? That i’m like a ghost or something? I don’t believe in supernatural junk. I ain’t got the luxury to be daydreaming like that.” We say simultaneously, yet again.

She scoffs. “I’m Hades, and i’m not conditional. I’m fair…somewhat, and you’re clogging up the motions of the afterlife, Aaron.”

Now I laugh. “Since when has Hades ever been a woman? Or play an instrument?”

“Do not restrict me to the confines of depictions haphazardly illustrated by mere mortals.” She digs a nail with dirt packed at the cuticle between her teeth. “But since you’re so concerned, I take on the form of the last person you saw before croaking. And this?” She pats the harp. “Is heavy as hell.”

“So…what? This the underworld?”

She strums a chord. “Nah, i’ve been out of that job, underworld merged with something else. And if you keep it up, you might meet him.”

5.

I make way back to the watch, up that small hill. Her harp strings haunt me as she floats on a huddle of black clouds, trailing behind me. This is all just a no good bad dream; I dozed while reading.

I speak over my shoulder. “I’m not in hell; I’m not heaven; I’m not in the underworld, but I’m dead? Yeah, aight.”

“I’m not allowed to tell you where you are, only where you aren’t, Aaron Jones. Studied hard on a spring night, eating sushi you picked up on the way from that one gas station. The cashier asked ‘are you sure’ when you placed it on the counter. Why not ramen? Why not the hotdogs spinning since yesterday morning? You insisted. You consumed the slimy sushi and fell ill just hours later. Rancid.” The harp plays dreamy notes, this makes my stomach churn. “‘just a little rest’ you said after returning from your hourly walk, and that’s when you took a took nap you never awoken from. Found dead in…a graveyard.”

Sure, I had gas station sushi but I’m still alive. I feel fine.

“If you don’t move forward you’ll move backwards. You don’t have that much time. You must let him go…”

“I got an essay to plagiarize. Good night, Hades.”

These clouds masks her into a sillhouette. “Meet you later…”

She vanishes.

I shut the door to the watch.

0.

I step into the afternoon sun. Finally, my lungs are filled with fresh air and not lecture hall spores.

My English professor harassed us about this five paged analytical essay due tomorrow. I’d be lucky if I have enough energy to finish the readings. Let alone understand what made Greek gods (Especially Hades) so conditional.

I just want to be an Engineer.

On my drive to my job, Lament’s End Cemetery, I fill up my tank and buy a very late dinner: some subpar sushi. Better than nothing.

“Are you sure?” The cashier ringing me out looks like she’s seen a ghost.

I can’t tell if she’s twenty or fifty years old. It’s the blue ribbon tied in her hair.

I laugh to myself. “You right, lemme just go to the Benihana up the street.” I tap my card on the kiosk.

She smiles with only the bottom half of her face.

Around midnight, I sit in the watch, reading this collection of Greek myths, praying that five pages fall into my lap, eating the best sushi in the world.

The End (if Aaron allows).