Funeral

Stringer's mother stands, looking down at the grave. The wind whistles and gasps as it tugs at their clothes, the few spare trees, the words of the priest. The old man had been a bastard but one look from his mother had warned him never speak ill of the dead. Despite everything the old man had finally broken the only contract that matter to her. Now she is left keeping a contract with the dead.

The graveyard is untended, overgrown. The weathered stones, pocked with the spreading stains of lichens are scattered like chess pieces. The church wall is hidden behind blood-coloured ivy and dark vermillion moss. Tall grasses, yellowing in the Autumn sun, rustle. Barely a couple of hours back and Stringer wishes he could be gone again. But something wrong has happened. Something that no-one will tell him about. They fear him. He has become an outsider, he feels it in himself as much as the ragged, furtive stares of the village.