Ghosts and Gravestones

For the first time I stood in a cemetery after-hours listening to a costumed, accented young gentleman telling ghost stories. Between tales he'd pick up his lantern, lit candle inside, and walk to a different location. Sometimes he'd stand in front of a tomb shaped like an obelisk, sometimes he'd gesture towards the Old North Church and talk about flying. It was humid, and being a native Californian and not used to the moisture, I had the uncanny feeling I was breathing in my own breath, slowly suffocating. But then suddenly the wind would pick up and the sweat would dry on my face and for a moment it was bearable again and my thirst wasn't so debilitating. I had Cotton Mather Mouth.

They drove us around in a trolley. We listened to the guide's narrative of creepy serial killers and Lovecraftian tales of horror and tunnels beneath the fair North End -- where only two nights before I enjoyed a tasty dish of Pollo Saltimbocca. We heard about bodies dumped in the harbor by mercenary grave diggers ... the Curse of the Boston Light ... We walked across the Boston Common and watched the guide put a noose around a girl's head. We paid too much for parking. I gave a transient fifty cents outside the 7-11. And we saw the outside of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Athenaeum, overlooking the Granary Hill Cemetery near the remains of Paul Revere and John Hancock's slave Frank. I thought I might feel more standing in a space with over 10,000 bodies beneath my feet. I didn't feel uncomfortable or scared. I guess we were laughing at the darkness with our costumed guide, keeping our minds busy, no time for thought or mystery. The most I could manage was surprise at the nearness of civilization and how the city had incorporated these living graveyards into the heart of the city. Hello, we've just left this sacred place and there's a Gap.

I alloted myself only ten minutes, and now it's a half hour later. Obviously, blogging transcends time and space for its own vicious ends. Fight the power.