The cemetery ghost

Shukumar, the old cemetery caretaker's time was up. Destiny had a little yet important role to play. It made an driver under the influence crash an SUV into the graveyard.  58 year old Shukumar was hit by the SUV as it ploughed right into the fence beside which he always sat. He was a bird watcher. Sometimes when there weren't any birds, he fixed his gaze on the plants. His eyes would start from the visible roots and go far up to the highest branch buzzing with leaves—like a train slowly inching towards its destination. This habit probably didn't present itself as a gift box before Shukumar, or any other cemetery caretaker in general. It was rather compulsory, because what else could a cemetery caretaker do all day? As for the SUV driver, he probably fell into the depths fate's cruelty—pulled in so deep that he couldn't gather the courage to crawl back up. It took Shukumar a minute to realise he was dying. But the poor guy wasn't even in his senses to grasp that he was dying as his SUV hit a gravestone and his head bounced off the steering wheel with a crunch. 

The graveyard is an appropriate place to die.

While the driver was buried in this graveyard (with his name in italics carved on the expensive gravestone), Shukumar was buried in some other because of course, this one was for the privileged. Here, the gravestones were made of marbles, the garden was neatly trimmed, the grass was regularly grazed, the shrubs added a mournful delight. All in all, the graveyard was a ghost thick with ornaments put on by loved ones.  It was a chameleon too. One would totally buy that they are in another world after visiting the place during a different season. In summer, it was a sweltering mess. One would need shades and an umbrella to stand in front of the gravestones and pray for the deceased.  At night, it was a ghost's crown—plain for the most part, holding the beds of the dead like gems, guarded by willow trees, dimly lit by sodium bulbs dangling from gothic lamps. In winter, it was a scene from the films in decades long gone—black and white, and thick with fog and brown leaves. In spring, it was a fiery patch of land—the pathways would be blanketed by rusty leaves.

As for Shukumar's replacement (there had to be a replacement; the deceased do need a guard), the authority appointed Rahel as the new caretaker—the bed cleaner of the dead. Rahel had travelled long miles like a ghost. No one had been aware of his presence. He had come hidden under a banana truck, unknown of his destination, accepting the truck's destination as his own. When the journey had finally come to a screeching halt and the drivers had discovered him, he had woken up with a jolt from the depths of a phantom sleep. Though his vision had been blurry, he kept running until the drivers were not in sight. The guts then mustered by Rahel had been more like a compulsive act than choice. If he hadn't, he would've been locked between the web of unknown cells and unknown language. Though this new destination scared Rahel, it was safe at least.  He had been discovered by the owner of the graveyard land- a fellow citizen of Rahel's motherland, and he had taken mercy at a fellow brother's misery and given him a job as the new caretaker.

Soon, Rahel learned about Shukumar's demise, how he was sitting by the fence, all relaxed only to get killed a few seconds after. Thus, Rahel adopted a new policy. He would keep his eyes open and sit behind the age old banyan, strong enough to stop an SUV or a truck. He often wondered what Shukumar did to pass his days here.  Hadn't he ever been bored? 

Instead of growing bored of the place, Rahel grew to be quite a fan of it. It was always deserted and peaceful, punctuated by birdsongs and flutes of passing nomads. He could hear the leaves slowly ascending the earth and the squirrels skittering around like bullet trains. He spent days watching the trees, probably studying how the rifts on the barks bled into each other and were a different planet of ants carrying about their regular journeys from the bottom to the branch.  Rahel loved taking care of the tree here. He assigned the different plants different roles. The banyan was his protector; the willows were a circle of ghosts; the white poplars were old men who had witnessed the graveyard's history and become white haired with age. For him, the graveyard was a heaven as no one bothered him here. He was on his own among the souls once alive, now peeking from the soil beds, caressing their own gravestones, climbing up the trees, watching birds, forming loops in the sky and crashing into the soil.

The silence and peace that always hung in the air wiped off the dented memories of his country, where the sky and earth were thick with rockets and skeletons.