He stood rigid, unmoving, his feet planted to the spot. He’d been standing there, idle, for hours now. The wind caressed his neck and body, weaved through his hair, and brought a slight curl down across his forehead. Either he did not notice, or he did not care to push it away; his mind focused on things of greater importance.
The field was abandoned, save for the lad. Was he the only one who concerned enough to have come? Leaves lifted, to drift for but a moment, and then lied down once more in their resting places. His knees were locked into place. What was he doing here? What was his purpose in coming?
The cemetery was filled with gravestones, each spaces approximately the same distance from one another, with a few fresh ones being dug for those whom death had recently taken into his care. The site was littered with flowers, random memorandums meant to bring the bodies closer to the onlookers, but instead fluttered off in the vastness of the place, to a new home of ambiguity. The large oak tree stood its ground, roots clinging to the earth with all its might. It stood firm, unyielding. It’d been standing there for years now.
The young man bent to both knees. His hands gently wiped the dirt away from the front of the stone. He muttered the inscription to the wind, who carried it away to unknown.
Why was he here? He asked himself again. He did not know he who lied beneath the ground at his feet. He did not know of anyone who slept among the worms at this place. But who else would care? This man had become just another name. At one point, his children, his grandchildren, his relatives cared, knew his name, visited him in his absence from their lives. But now, now he lie forgotten beneath the sod of some dusty old cemetery. It was possible that he was much like this man he never knew. It was possible that - in the end - he would become as he were now.
A tear rolled began its descent along the smooth line of his cheek: He reached up and stopped it. He would be stronger, he would make a history... he refused to be forgotten.
So he rose to stability once more, and walked down the road to freedom. He set off to make a name for himself. Little did he know, that a name was all that would be left upon the marker in the ground in his honor.
He’s been forgotten there for lifetimes now. Until, perhaps, one day, someone should stumble upon his grave...
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Submission Name: Forgotten
