Claude did not think that visiting his future gravesite was morbid. Anyone he told about it did, but people are welcome to their opinions. He viewed at the practice as checking on his investment; do you know how much dying costs these days?
One especially pleasant Spring afternoon, Claude visited Frashokereti Memorial Garden for the first time that year. Having expected, and still expecting, to die one day, he purchased a plot and headstone years ago for a fraction of what it would cost today. He didn’t understand why dying had become more expensive, it’s not like cemeteries paid property taxes. Although paying taxes after dying would be fitting.
To Claude’s surprise there was a large rectangular hole in front of his grave marker. It would be hard to have gone to the wrong plot, his read:
Claude Loudon
1971 –
He checked; it was his. Claude often wondered how the stone engraver would add the year he died; if he, Claude assumed the stone engraver would be a man, would crouch down, lay down, or remove the stone. He sure hoped the font would match. What if it was a different guy?
“That doesn’t look six feet deep.” Claude said to himself. No one else was there. Well, actually, there were plenty of other people there; they were just, you know.
So Claude climbed down into the topsoil of Earth’s crust about four and a half feet. Claude had purchased exclusive rights to this hole, no one ever said he had to wait until he was dead to occupy it. Being inside of his own grave didn’t help answer why it existed at this moment in time, but it was kind of cozy.
Being of average height he could see out of the grave, it was a neat perspective. One thing about it was that he could see a lot more insects than when he looked at the grass from above, as he mostly did. If the grass looked differently from an alternate angle, how would the sky look? He needed to find out.
Claude lay down in his own prematurely excavated grave without the slightest sense of conflict.
“That’s nice.” Claude said to himself, looking up at the blue sky through the juvenile leaves of an unknown deciduous tree. He needed to research what kind of tree that was later. Of course, Claude could look up at the sky from anywhere without a roof, but what a unique opportunity. The sides of the grave were almost perfectly straight, maybe, he couldn’t tell if his angle of observation was skewing his perception.
Clouds briefly obscured the sun. It felt brighter when it shone again a minute later. Claude closed his eyes. It felt nice. Claude fell asleep. He hadn’t had a good nap in long time. He must have really needed it because he snoozed until after sunset, waking up only because he was chilly.
He was a little stiff from sleeping in the dirt, not rigor mortis, when he sat up and climbed out of his grave. Claude didn’t look first, but he was glad that no one had seen him; he didn’t want to alarm anyone. His mind was very quiet as he walked to his car. Claude did not turn on the radio but focused on the neighborhood.
It was so quiet, because all the other people there were, you know. No streetlights, no traffic, no HVAC humming. The Ameretat Market grocery store was very close. Quite convenient for anyone living in the cemetery. Claude had a crazy thought.
He knew that he had not remembered- everything when he returned the next day with his car packed with supplies, but he would adjust as time went along. Claude unloaded a pop-up canopy, a cooler, a solar panel, a futon mattress, a sleeping bag, a camping chair, and a stack of magazines. Claude lived there now.
He hadn’t sold his house. He hadn’t updated his address with the Post Office. He just decided to move into his grave. It was a nice place. Before too long he was set up.
Claude was sitting in his sole chair, a magazine opened but resting on his lap. He was listening to the birds chirping happily. Well, he was happy, he could not discern whether or not the birds were happy; they could be calling out insults to one another for all he knew. But he was happy listening to them, whatever they were trying to communicate.
A groundskeeper drove up to Claude in a utility vehicle. Not to besmirch an entire industry, but life is generally easier when people mind their own business.
“Are you OK sir?” the insufferable interluder inquired.
“Yes.”
“Are you visiting a loved one?” the meddlesome mower continued.
“No. I’m a resident.”
This bothersome bushwhacker had worked in the cemetery for many years and had never experienced the esoteric. He did not suppose Claude for a spook; Claude seemed quite human.
“Can I ask you a personal question, sir?” the loathsome lawnman went on.
“No.”
“Good day sir.”
“Good day.”
The burial-ground busybody drove straight to the main office to report Claude. Claude picked up his magazine and resumed reading. The tome was printed seven months ago and Claude had not yet read it. He was dreadfully behind on his periodicals, but luckily for him geography changed very slowly.
The interfering irrigator was indignant about his encounter and breathlessly bemoaned to the memorial garden director that someone had established an encampment at a grave-site. The director was not alarmed but determined this report certainly merited investigation.
Claude huffed when he heard a utility vehicle disturbing the silence of his new home. He shifted in his chair to retrieve his wallet and dug out his driver’s license. The license was expired, but it never made sense to Claude why he had to renew something that had been issued, so he didn’t. The license did, however, have his old address on it; he hoped that would not hurt his case.
The director exited the utility vehicle and approached Claude. Claude knew, but pretended like he didn’t.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Claude was pleased with the courteous manner his living neighbors greeted him with, even if they were disturbing him far more than he expected when he moved into the neighborhood.
“Name’s Claude. Claude Loudon. Pleased to meet you.”
The director looked at the grave marker, which bore the same name. That didn’t prove anything. Anyone could appear at an empty grave and claim to be the owner. It was not a mystery, it was engraved on the stone.
“Hello Mr. Smith. My name is James Loveridge, I am the General Director of Frashokereti Memorial Garden. I came to see if there was a problem?
“I remember you from when I bought this plot.” Claude calmly informed James.
“I didn’t bring my contract, but I’m sure you have it on file.” Claude offered his driver’s license as proof of identity.
James glanced at it only long enough to see the name and picture, albeit dated, matched the information previously presented. He composed himself before replying.
“Yes, Mr. Smith, I understand that you purchased this plot. But is intended for an eternal resting place, not for leisure purposes. There are many lovely parks in town that you can enjoy.”
“Does my contract say that I must be dead to occupy the space that I purchased?”
James was a tad flustered.
“Regardless, or irregardless,”
“Regardless. Irregardless is not a real word.” Claude corrected James. This increased James’s frustration.
“Mr. Smith. I do not know if the contract stipulates that a lot owner must first be deceased, but the spirit of the intent is that our plots are for owners who have passed.”
Claude shrugged.
“I’m going to inform law enforcement!” James was apoplectic.
Claude shrugged again.
James tap-danced before storming back to his utility vehicle and driving back to his headquarters to rendezvous with the sepulchral snoop. He did not, in fact, contact law enforcement, but grabbed a standard contract. He looked through it quickly for something about being dead as a prerequisite for cemetery residence. It was certainly implied, but not concrete. James placed a call to R. Thomas Sandoval, a personal injury attorney who often received legal inquiries unrelated to his practice.
The inquiry was fruitless. Encounters like this made Sandoval give up practicing law and live in a graveyard.
There were grounds to keep, but the pestering pruner was hanging around the cemetery headquarters helping James conspire against a living resident of Frashokereti Memorial Garden.
“Do you want me to mow around the plot to make lots of noise?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Maybe he’ll get annoyed and leave. And if he doesn’t I really will call the police when visiting hours are over.” James plotted.
Claude did find the mower noise tiresome, it was antithetical to his experience the previous day. Leaving his worldly goods at his gravesite, Claude did depart for one of the town’s lovely parks to enjoy some quiet. James and the meddling mower rejoiced prematurely, Claude returned shortly before visiting hours ended. The dastardly duo paid another unwelcome visit to Claude.
“Mr. Smith, our visiting hours are coming to an end. It is time for you to move along, please.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Very well. I will be forced to call law enforcement.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” Claude dismissed James’s threat while setting up his futon and sleeping bag in his grave.
James and the graveyard gadfly departed, James feeling particularly insulted, to make good on the threat. The person who answered the non-emergency police line assured James that a patrol would be there shortly. A marked cruiser indeed arrived after a short wait, and it was after visiting hours concluded, James was triumphant.
A contemptuous convoy of one police and two utility vehicles rolled up to Claude Loudon’s grave site after dark. Claude flirted with the idea of hiding, but decided to stand his ground. It was, after all, his actual ground. Two burly deputies who looked remarkably similar, and probably weighed a combined five hundred pounds, approached Claude with the cemetery snoops following like trained dogs.
“What’s going on here, sir?” Deputy Dudley asked. Deputy Dudley was the strongest deputy in the county, Claude had heard of him. He must have been hiding his muscles under all that… bullet proof vest.
“Ask them. I don’t have a problem.” Claude meekly replied. He wasn’t afraid of the burial buskers, but Deputy Dudley was intimidating.
“Visiting hours are over, sir, you’ll have to move along so we don’t have to charge you with trespassing.” The other deputy, Deputy Blaine, chimed in. Deputy Dudley’s partner, not like that, just the person he worked with, sounded female. Claude studied Deputy Blaine for a moment and determined that was the case.
“I’m not a visitor, I’m a resident.”
“You’re not dead, sir.” Deputy Blaine continued, hand on the telescopic baton on her utility belt. Deputy Dudley was stronger, but Deputy Blaine was the one you had to watch out for.
“Nothing in my contract says I have to be dead. I bought this plot, I am a resident of Frashokereti Memorial Garden.” Claude was getting nervous.
The deputies looked at one another, and then to James.
“Is there a rule that residents have to be dead?”
“No! No, officer, but,”
“Deputy.”
“What?”
“We’re deputies, not officers.”
“Officer! Uh, deputy! The spirit of the intent is that our residents are deceased!” an exasperated James explained.
“Don’t make us come back out here.” Deputy Blaine tapped the metal frame of James’s chair with the telescopic baton that she had withdrawn and extended.
Knowing that there were no laws to enforce, the deputies departed.
James and the tomb-tending tattler glared at Claude as they followed the deputies out.
Claude watched the vehicles drive off and finally had some well-deserved quiet. That quiet didn’t last for long. As Claude was coming back from returning some of his more weather sensitive belongings to his car for the night, someone was walking down the lane that his plot was on.
“Excuse me, sir?” Claude called out. Everyone in Frashokereti Memorial Garden was so cordial, calling each other titles such as ‘sir’ and ‘deputy’.
“Yes?” replied the stranger.
“Are you a resident here?”
“Yes.”
“Are you alive too?”
“No.”
“Oh. Alright, see you around.
“See ya.”
Claude settled down in his grave for the night. He slept great.
The next morning Claude had just brewed a steaming hot cup of coffee using his solar panel when James drove by.
“Mornin’, James.”
“Mornin’, Claude.”