Merry Cemetery- is famous for its colourful tombstones with naïve paintings describing, in an original and poetic manner, the persons that are buried there as well as scenes from their lives. The Merry Cemetery became an open-air museum and a national tourist attraction.
Tranquil, and contemplative, I walk through these spaces that are filled with memories of love. Memories of lives spent with family and friends. Memories of horror, and tragedy. Memories of loss, and longing. I find it centering, and peaceful. It gives me comfort to know that after all is said, and done. When our lives have finished the diverse journeys they traveled. No matter our shame, or pride, sin or glory, we all end up together, held in mother Earth’s cool embrace.
summary: he needed a way to tell marinette he was sorry. that he was sorry for not telling her about him. that he was sorry for missing their dates. that he was sorry he was the reason they broke up. that he was the reason she was dead.
5.game on | fluff, humour, damian being a simp for marinette
summary: lady noire met red hood – another not-so-welcomed vigilante like her in gotham. you would expect the two of them to hit it off, maybe work together, but it was the complete opposite. it was hate at first sight.
summary: “i dare you to go to that man there,” alya pointed at an, admittedly, handsome man, “and ask him out on a date using puns.” alya finished her dare with a smug smirk.
summary: “oh,” tim quietened down and jason relished the silence. until, well, dick apparently snatched the phone from tim and screeched, “marinette’s a ghost!”
summary: “oh,” tim quietened down and jason relished the silence. until, well, dick apparently snatched the phone from tim and screeched, “marinette’s a ghost!”
Jason walked out of the graveyard feeling a palpable sense of loss and yet…yet, he felt lighter than before.
And for the first time, since he came to Paris, he actuallylooked around. His loss hit him harder, but in some ways, it made him feel a little better too – it reminded him of Marinette.
He smiled wistfully as he remembered the times Marinette would gush about Paris and how beautiful it was. Jason could see the appeal now.
He only wished Marinette was there.
◇─◇──◇─◇
An hour later, as he walked into his hotel room, Jason saw that he had 283 missed calls from literally every single member of his family.
He had left his phone here so that he didn’t have to deal with the constant phone calls he would have definitelygotten.
Jason picked up his phone and sighed as he waited for it to start calling.
As soon as it started ringing, the phone was picked up by a hystericalTim screaming, “FINALLY! Why didn’t you pick up the goddamnphone?”
Jason huffed, his voice raspy. “Becauseidiot, I left it in the room. Now is there a reason why you’re screeching like a banshee in my ear?”
“Oh,” Tim quietened down and Jason relished the silence. Until, well, Dick apparently snatched the phone from Tim and screeched, “Marinette’s a ghost!”
Jason sat up straight. “What the hell, Dick? That’s not even funny.”
He heard Barbara’s voice in the background. “Dick, you idiot, we toldyou not to tell him like that.”
“Can someone tell me what is going o-” Jason was interrupted by Tim, who said, “Check your email – I’ve mailed you a video.”
Setting his phone aside, Jason opened his laptop and clicked on the mail. It was a video…from a camera near the graveyard.
What the hell?
“Whywere you spyingon me?” Jason asked into the phone, outraged.
He heard Damian snort. “Why, Todd? Because we were-”
“-worried about you!” Dick finished.
“I wasn’t going to say that!” Damian yelled.
“I know,” said Dick, apparently exasperated. “That’s why I interrupted you. Anyway, have you watched the video yet, Jay?”
Jason involuntarily flinched. That was what Mari used to call him.
“No, not yet,” he said, voice raspy.
He heard Tim sigh on the other side of the line. “Then watch it already!”
When Jason clicked on the video, he had to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
It showed him walking into the graveyard with about a hundred other ghostly people watching him!
“This is not some elaborate prank it is?” Jason suddenly asked.
Dick huffed into the phone. “Do you really think we’d actually dosomething like that?”
“Point.” Jason conceded and unpaused the video.
It showed him putting the flowers and…Jason rubbed his eyes to make sure it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.
Marinetteas a ghost was watching him.
“What the actual fu-”
“Language, Jason,” said Bruce.
“Is this for real?” Jason asked, still watching the video intently.
“Yes. I’ve been looking through the JL files for something that would tell us why wecan see it and not others but I haven’t found anything yet.”
Jason sighed as he tipped his chair onto its hind legs. “All right, call me up when you do.”
For once, Jason appreciated Bruce’s ability to read situations as he said, “You’ll be the first one to know if we find anything,” he confirmed.
There was an awkward pause, and in a much gentler tone, Bruce said, “Get some sleep, Jason. Give yourself sometime to process this.” And he hung up.
And for the first time since Marinette died, Jason felt the semblance of a realsmile break out on his face.
It was nice to know Bruce cared.
◇─◇──◇─◇
The next morning, Jason felt sufficiently refreshed and watched the video Tim sent him with a clearer eye.
He noticed that if he looked closelyhe could see faint outlines of the other ghosts flickering in and out.
So. This only applies to the people who I know.
That was interesting.
As he walked down to breakfast, Jason made an effort to not let his hopes get up. The chances were slim that Marinette would be coming back to life.
For the rest of the day, he toured around Paris – mainly the places Marinette loved. A kind of tribute to her, in a way.
First, he saw the Eiffel Tower, then a small coffee shop by the Seine and finally the Louvre.
He visited her parents, too. It was awkward to say the least.
But after Jason explained his reason for being there (I want to know more about Marinette; about her childhood, everything before we met) the ice was soon broken and before he knew it, they were going through memories of Marinette’s childhood.
And as they went through every memory, Jason sawwhy Marinette loved her parents as much as she did.
Tom & Sabine Dupain-Cheng were one of the kindest people you would ever meet. Yes, Marinette’s death had caused a wound that would never truly heal but they didn’t let that affect their life to the point where they felt there was no need to live anymore.
They managed to see the light in everything and that was what Jason appreciated the most.
When he reached his hotel room that night, his laptop rung almost immediately with a call from Tim.
As soon as he clicked on acceptTim’s voice – unusually hesitant – came over. “Jason,” he said – and Jason felt an odd sense of foreboding when he heard that. As if there was news, just not good news. “We have some news about Marinette.”
Despite his utmost efforts, Jason couldn’t help it when his heart beat faster. “Yeah?” he said, hoping his voice didn’t reveal what he was feeling.
Apparently, he had succeeded because Tim’s voice was much stronger when he spoke this time. “Bruce called Zatanna for her help because she knows a lot about magic. And…”
He trailed off.
Jason waited, listening for an answer. “And?” he prompted.
“Well, uh-” Tim mumbled.
He knew it.
“She said, Dupain-Cheng is not coming back,” said Damian with his usual bluntness, only in a tone that Jason would consider gentle.
“Damian!” Jason heard Dick yelp. “You didn’t have to say it like that!”
Before Damian could respond, Jason inhaled sharply. “It’s alright, Dick. I think I was kind of expecting this.”
“You were?” Dick asked cautiously, obviously afraid Jason might go suicidal.
Not that he could blame him, Jason thought wryly. He hadn’t been the most mentally stable people over the last few months, had he?
“Yeah.”
At their silence, Jason felt the need to explain himself. “I guess, it all started when I came here to visit,” he explained, trying to say what he felt in words. “I visited Marinette’s grave and all the places she liked. Then her parents. I guess…I guess, it gave me a kind of closure. The closure that I needed.”
Jason spread his hands helplessly when no one said anything. “I can’t really explain it better than that.”
“That’s very…insightful, Jason,” He didn’t even know Bruce was there. “I think I understand what you’re saying to some extent.”
Exhaling, Jason suddenly felt drained. Maybe that took more thought than he had realized.
“I want to stay in Paris for some more time,” he said, wanting to get thatover with as soon as possible.
“Absolutely,” Dick said firmly, as if daring anyone to disagree with him. “Stay as long as you need, little brother.”
Jason didn’t even realize he was crying until he felt the tears on his face.
◇─◇──◇─◇
As he went to bed that night, Marinette’s death hit Jason harder than ever, but instead of the overwhelming loss he had expected…Jason felt hopeful.
Maybe, just maybe, he would move on. Not get over Marinette, absolutely not.
But he could follow Tom and Sabine and try to move on.
I took Cooper for a walk the other day, and I try to take a new trail every time. Trails branch off at random, sometimes old mining roads, sometimes game trails well-traveled enough to dupe a novice and tempt a regular. But this one branched past an old dilapidated cabin, windows smashed and guts covered in dust and leaves. Just past the rotten home, maybe 20 feet into the woods, there was a wooden post sticking some three feet up from the ground. It had the usual marks of man — straight, smooth, standing erect. I stepped through the deadfall to get a closer look. Every other piece of planed wood was either collapsing into the cabin or already ground-bound, rotting back to its mother. At the base of the stud were rocks piled in a pyramid of sorts, holding it in place, and beside the rocks, two moss covered statues the size of small rabbits. Beneath their soft, green blankets were two angels, kneeling by the post, one with their stone hands clasped looking up, the other with their hands on the ground, staring into it.
A marker read, “You were so much STRONGER and BRAVER and SWEETER than I will ever Be. I’ll miss you. Love Peter”
In lettering lost in time, you can just make out the name: Henrietta.
Just up the dirt road from our house is the cemetery, unfenced and unkept. There’s a swing strung between two old aspens, and you can kick your feet high above the handful of graves below. One gravestone shares two names — both children, laid to rest more than 100 years ago. In the center of their grave bed, a massive pine has splintered the stone with her roots made of bones and breath. Even with a cemetery in town, there are graves everywhere. Marked or forgotten, along the town’s edges, on the mountain, and inthe mountain where men and burros were held hostage and held forever in the mines. There are two memorials right now in a town with fewer people than my graduating class in rural Ohio. One waves with prayer flags on a grassy knoll overlooking the old part of town. Beneath the flags, a photo of a girl my age, riding horseback through town. The other is in the cemetery, a mound dug and buried the day we moved in. As we unpacked our moving truck on a warm July day, cars with license plates from up and down the Rockies parked along our street to pay tribute. On the gravestone hangs the collar and tags of the man’s dog. He was 42.
I can’t walk by or even near Henrietta’s grave without talking to her, the peculiarity of which is heightened by the fact that it’s hard to tell if Henri was a girl or a dog. Either way, the conversations are the same:
“How’re the woods today? Any good visitors? Anything you’d like me to see?”
In the chance there’s some connective tissue between now and every then, I’m following the golden rule. I personally would like people to talk to me, to be curious, to be revenant. How fast do you think I could trip someone with a well-placed root if they were one of those people who carried speakers into the woods? How deeply could I infect their psyche if they defaced my resting place or hurt an animal?
Thus far, if Henrietta seems anything, it’s suspicious. Which is fine. I would be too. But she’s not the only one I’m talking to. In a deeper canyon, six miles by foot from the house, you can feel the enormity of time. A box canyon closing in on you with a swampy bottom, talus fields, waterfalls, and a scree climb to the ridge. Something that feels pulled from Land Before Time or referenced for some untouched world space saga. Alone on a misty trail run, I felt safe enough from the eyes of judgment that I knelt on the ground, my bare hands on the soil, and shared my intentions with the Earth: her kingdom is my gift to hold tenderly and her right to take quickly. I stayed on my knees until I forgot how it might look to someone coming, and I stayed a little longer after that until the connection loosened and I felt the dirt in my fingernails.
I dusted off my knees and my hands and carried on running. Around the next bush, I came to a quick halt — there in the middle of the path was a porcupine, as startled to see me as I was her. Nature, providing an offering and a test. Are you a good steward? Can you see this moment for what it is? I stepped back and spoke softly until the porcupine waddled deep into the brush. I carried on with that feeling of earned reverence in my heart, talking mostly to myself.
As we approach Halloween, the town has yet to unveil any inherent spookiness beyond the reality of death. Hard work and hard loss are etched in, but there’s no unease. And maybe there never will be if I keep talking to all the dead people and animals, the dying trees, the creatures long absorbed into the ground.
Several people asked me if I feel safe here, especially out in the wilderness on my own. Some people don’t know any better. They never learned the animals are mostly harmless. They never read the research that you’re much more likely to die at the hands of your partner than at those of a stranger. They never knew I already escaped those hands anyway. They never learned to read the sky and the mountain. Never learned to read me.
But whatever I am safe from here, I think more about what I am safe to be here: odd. Solitary. The kind of woman who kneels, palms in the soil, to feel time and purpose crawl up her spine vertebrae by vertebrae like a wooden roller coaster, hoping to stay in the moment long enough to feel the freefall of getting lost in time.
Whatever strange, backwoods habits this town enables, it also draws you in from the deathly calls of the winter wind with emails like this:
On Sunday, meet in the town square at 5pm in COSTUME for the parade, pizza, and the photo. Trick or treating starts at 6pm on the old side of town. Ryan will transport the kids to the other side of town and back at night. Add Town Hall to your trick or treating to meet the new Town Manager, John.
You want me to… wear a costume? To take a town photo? And meet the new town manager? Guys there are 150 people here. If you stand outside your house for longer than 5 minutes, you’ll meet the new town manager.
But that’s small town life. And I bought Halloween candy weeks ago to prepare for our first-ever trick’or’treaters. Hopefully after a few years of talking to ghosts in the pines, I won’t need a costume. The local kids will be scared enough as is.
——
This is issue #10 of Shangrilogs, a story of high altitude relocation and renovation. Subscribe here. See the journey on Instagram here.
Kind of a personal, unhinged, manic ramble. But it’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m just in that kind of mood.
So, there’s nothing concrete yet because nobody answers emails at 1 in the morning in a Saturday. But.
I just applied for a position in the funeral home for my favourite cemetery in the city I live in. I’m not the top candidate because I don’t have a bachelor’s degree in anything, but it said on the listing that the degree wasn’t a necessary qualification— only a preferred one. But I have all the mandatory qualifications, including nearly 6 years of experience in customer service. Benefits of being poor as shit and joining the workforce in high school, I guess.
Anyway. I know it sounds weird to be excited to the point of mania over the possibility of working in a funeral home and helping grieving families bury their dead relatives. I know exactly how that sounds. But I really love this cemetery for a lot of reasons. And my little goth ass has wanted to work in a cemetery literally as long as I can remember. I’d like to be a groundskeeper, but I’m not physically capable. Which sucks. But the bright side is there’s still something I can do there and I really hope I at least land an interview. I’m just really excited and I hope that if I scream about it to enough people my ancestors will hear me and make it happen for me.
Just. I’m really excited and I hope I came across the job listing for a reason. I’m not sure how much I believe in anything like fate or destiny, but I think things have a way of working out in the long run.
