Blood and Stone

I love cemeteries.

I love them even more at night when both the living and the dead lie sleeping. Covered in blankets of earth.

There is one particular cemetery that is close to my house called Hallowed Rest. I always take walks at night and my meandering feet carry me to this place. It's easy to sneak in between the rusted iron bars of the gate that surrounds the perimeter. There are no caretakers that come anymore the city has stopped paying for them. It saddens me to see the poor isolated and neglected headstones chocked by weeds. Yet no matter where I roam amidst the hills in the dark I always come back to him.

He is a statue. A very beautiful yet forlorn statue. The stone depicts a man crouched down both arms supported on his bent knees. A cloak is tied carelessly about his neck and ripples in the nonexistent wind. What touches me the most about this figure is the expression on his face. He looks so sad as if he were bent under the weight of his sorrows. Beneath his eyes lie the tracks of tears. Or at least I like to dream that they are tears my rational mind knows that the marks are due to the fall of rain which has stained the stone over the innumerable years. The statue does not guard a grave but lies in a quiet corner removed from the dead.

I sit at his feet and lean over his bent knee placing my warm hand over his cold one. There is such sympathy in stone. He is more a part of me than anyone else I know.

When I started coming here finding him was like finding a treasure. Yet the more I came the more thoughts of this inert object began to consume me. One could fairly say I am obsessed. There would be no doubt of it if they were to see the way I embrace the statue's neck running my fingers in the rough grooves of his hair whispering into his carved ear.

Does he hear me? I'd give anything to know.

I dream about him coming alive into my room. A flesh and blood man. He bends over me, I can feel his warm breath on my face as I open my eyes. He has dark hair and is wearing his cloak. I reach up to undo the leather tie hearing the garment whisper down to the floor. I remove his old fashioned shirt and pants leading him magnificently naked to my bed where I wait for him throbbing with heat and longing. He kisses my lips and I come undone at his touch. His hands caress me everywhere tasting my skin. He sucks my nipples and I cry out burying my hands in his thick silky hair he looks up at me his eyes glimmer in the night. I tell him that I love him as he sinks deep inside me. I cry out in the night raking the skin of his back that breaks open and spills black blood into the night.

I wake up then.

After many months of this agony I can stand it no longer. My life is shit without him and all that I do to try to stop my obsession fails. My roommate is a paranoid man who collects guns. This night I walk through the rusty bars and am carried straight to him. No life without my love, my obsession. The gun handle is warm and slippery in my hand.

But as I approach the statue I hear drunken laughter. Coming closer I can see black shapes swirling around my statue. Sharp heavy thuds ring sonorously in the night. No, I think rushing forward. I clap my hand over my mouth to stop my screams.

The shadows reveal three drunken teenage boys two of them armed with baseball bats. After becoming bored with smashing mere headstones they have found this masterpiece and already wreacked their havoc on his frame.

Tears pour down my cheeks as I see the broken pieces strewn about on the lawn. His hands have been broken off the lovely wing of his cloak lies on the ground, the wing cut from the bird.

They are laughing crazily swinging the bats above their heads. Without pause I aim the gun it is not as hard as my roommate made me believe. One, two, three cracks in the night. Three dead bodies lying in the dark grass their blood feeding the earth.

I run to the statue embracing his neck the cold stone biting into my skin. I press my wet cheek to his running my hands over where his hands used to be I feel a warm stickiness. I bring my hands closer to my face. In the night blood is black. I cry out and look up into the statue's face. Tears pour from his eyes. Blood tears. My statue is bleeding from the wounds he has received.

Of course this can't be happening. Stone doesn't bleed. You can't get blood from stone, as my father says. I pull off my jacket and wipe at the tears falling from his eyes feeling them drip warmly onto my forearm.

The broken hands seep blood but slowly the blood stops flowing.

I am really too stunned by the miracle before me but I hear sirens in the distance. Looking back at the statue I scoop up the gun and run back to my apartment.

They never found out who killed the three boys. When I scanned the newspaper there was no mention of what the boys were doing in the graveyard.

After waiting two weeks I ventured back to the cemetery in the daylight. The caution tape had been removed from the area and the incident had been filed away as another senseless act of violence. I could see the bold outline of my statue as I came closer. I deliberately slowed my steps. In the light of day I would see the true damage that had been sustained by my statue. I didn't think I could bear it.

I thought a lot about what had occurred that night with the blood. My jacket still bore the gory evidence in case I thought that I was dreaming. But it couldn't be. It just wasn't possible.

When I came fully before the statue my mouth dropped open. He was fully restored. It was like those kids had never touched him. I knelt before the statue touching his hands that were whole tracing the lines of his face. "Oh my love," I whispered.

I felt warmth run through his stone skin at my words as I cuddled closer.