Curious (Story)

Curious

Since childhood I have been painfully curious. To me everything is interesting, from the smallest grain of sand to the most marvellous of man-made creations. Whether the object which catches my eye be living or dead, ancient or modern, broken or whole, even if the object is insignificant it doesn’t matter, it will catch my interest. To me everything is marvellous, everything is wonderful, and everything is simply amazing.
But the thing that caught my fascination most, were things to do with the dead. This curiosity for the macabre never left me - in fact it grew. There is something strangely romantic about the eerie atmosphere of a graveyard and something oddly soothing about the presence of a full moon on an already spooky night. To this day I am still passionately curious, perhaps even dangerously so.

One foot, right and then left, I moved forward; my eyes searching every material-object I passed by, looking for something odd, something distinctly unique or revoltingly curious. The sun had only been above the horizon for little more than an hour, it was a new day; a different route but the same old quest. For the last twenty years I have spent numerous hours every morning trying to find, fix and create trinkets, do-dads and thing-a-ma-jigs. That day I had already found: a worn, misshapen soft drink top, a conch shell that was chipped at base and was covered in seagull droppings, some curious yellow leaves that looked like they were new and freshly grown but crunched and crumbled in your hand like an ant under your feet and a wide variety of used, seemingly abused household appliances which I had found at the local dump. Another step forward, time raced by and before I realised, it was night time. My days off work were often like this, a huge scavenger hunt that lasted from dawn until dusk; yielding good results, but rarely anything that left me gasping in awe, nothing I hadn’t seen before. Basket-filled, I decided to continue on just a little longer. Step after step, breath after breath, heart-beat after heart-beat, I kept on walking forward and found I was heading towards a hill – a graveyard at its zenith.

The hill was steep, a ladder standing vertical. My curiosity and love for the macabre had taken over; I didn’t care how big or how steep the hill was, I was going to climb it! After every stride a star seemed to disappear from the sky, the moon would turn a slightly darker shade and a drop of sweat would slip out of my pores and sprinkle the ground. I considered myself to be quite fit; not an athlete but fitter than the average person, regardless I was no match for the hill. I stopped. Caught a breath. Stepped forward. Stopped. Caught a breath. Stepped forward. Stopped. I felt the immense weight of sweat that was building up on my body, followed by the incredible relief as it dripped off me. This pattern continued for the bulk of the weary uphill battle.

The graveyard was just before me, a rusted-iron fence; barely taller than myself, enclosing it. Blunt spikes made up the apex of each separate iron bar. Inside was a barren wonderland – my dreamland. The scent of decay tantalised my nostrils, the feel of the sullen wind tickled my skin, and my eyes bled in awe at very sight of the macabre. Adrenaline pumped through ever vein of my body, I was thrilled and excited. This was what I was looking for. This was exactly the kind of thing that not only captivated my curiosity, but enthralled it. Every breath felt heavy, it were as if I was alive, like I had breathed my first breath. The soul, the essence, the aura of the sombre environment of the graveyard enthralled my senses, rendering me paralysed, leaving me frozen stiff – a pillar. I was captivated! I was in my fantasy world and it was there, before me, real and tangible. Each bone that lies protruding slightly from under the ground, every wooden cross, the black dead trees, the eerie fog, each rat carcass, and every piece of disturbed dirt, everything about it left me bewildered in an ecstasy. My eyes had scoured every bit of the graveyard and stopped at the same place, an unmarked gravestone, hiding in the far right corner, underneath the only living tree in the graveyard.

The sky darkens an unearthly grey and rain vomits from the sullen clouds. You’re eyes fixate on one object; your brain only acknowledges one thought dig, dig, find what’s hidden beneath the unmarked grave, dig, dig. Like a magnet, you are drawn to the gravestone, pulled by the hand of an angel or more likely an invisible demon. The rain has softened the ground below you, turned it to slush, to a brown-black sewerage. The world transforms into an Edward Munch painting or Van Gogh’s Starry Night, everything seems warped, twisted; the only thing that makes sense to you anymore is your desire to delve into the very depths of the macabre, to discover the unknown – satisfy your black hole of curiosity. You trudge through the mud, it’s like you’re walking through a peat bog. With each step the rain sharpens, the sky turns a darker shade of grey and your boots begin to feel like lead. You continue walking through the slush until the gravestone stands before you.

Your right hand slides in the muck, followed by your left, like a motor, one hand then the next, digging up someone’s grave. All ethics fade from you, all thought becomes transparent, nothing matters to you now except the task of digging, of delving into the unknown, of sneaking towards the gates of hell and the inner crust of the earth. A fog descends and thickens around you; each blade of rain strikes your back like a whip, you struggle to keep your compose as the wind turns violent; relentlessly, mindlessly you dig, as if it were your sole purpose, like God himself had appointed you this task, had instilled an insatiable curiosity in you when you before birth. Sweat begins to build, your breaths become harder, and the lower layers of mud begin to crust on your hands while the rest remain sloppy and wet.

Deeper. Deeper. Hand after hand. Your pulse rises. The rain strikes. The wind tares the leaves off the tree. Everything about this is wrong. The whole world is telling you to stop, telling you no. Nothing about this is natural and yet you plough on. Deeper. Neverstopping. The further you get, the stronger your resolve. Deeper. The fog thickens, a white sheet covering the graveyard. Thunder, lightning, the heavens hail. Deeper. It is calling you now, dragging you. Deeper.

The sky clears, the rain stops, the wind dies and the grave seems untouched. A black cat sits perched on the tree looking at the gravestone which now reads:

RIP
Edgar Carroll
DOB: 22/05/1979
Insatiably curious