It was on his way to that frozen silent space, the graveyard, in the light of day when things turned dark. He was worried about her, concerned. She had shown signs of deep depression with her tombstone eyes and endless dreams, and more than that, she was far too quiet for far too long.

The old ford broke down, stalled at an intersection, wouldn’t start, kept turning over but just would not combust, ‘a gas problem’ he thought, ‘maybe electrical’, no spark. He rolled it across the down-hill intersection and parked it along side the twisted road, out of the way, almost hidden. Tried it a few more times, ‘I guess it’s a long walk’, he thought. He couldn’t test things alone, turn it over while holding a spark plug wire away from a spark plug, or some other technique to see if it was electrical or gas related, so he said fuck it, ‘I’ll walk and deal with it later’.

That is what put him in harms way with this moulded modern man, deranged, angry and out for madness.

He headed towards the tombs to meet her, to help her, be there for her; down the railroad tracts towards the old graveyard by the edge of town. He saw him coming, a strange dark figure, like the night, long coat, afghan brown hat, rusted-white complexion it appeared and with a neck bent towards the ground and piercing darkened eyes staring up direct at me, the air turned thick. We were both sharing the single well-worn path along the tracks, so I thought I’d move on to the railroad ties side and let him have the full trail to himself, it felt like he needed it. He kept glaring, staring as I approached so I half smiled to no avail and when we met within a few feet he quickly unravelled from the inside of his coat a dull black gun and fired a shot and then again, and as if I saw it coming, bang, bang, dead, and kept walking.

This unfinished poem, or maybe it was finished, anyways, it was found in his pocket scribbled in blood and ink.

there is a place where everything is one
no imagination or dreams
where reason is the crippled warrior
in a sea of mathematical analogies
relative and whole numbers separate into infinity
and eternity is absolute endless supreme and possibly
love is all there is

Writing and Images by patrick wey