THE MAUSOLEUM An Experiential Short Story By Jennifer Adele

In loving memory of my dog Hildegarde, who passed from this life with the same grace and dignity that she displayed while living it. I always thought wed have more time. Perhaps one day, we will.

You should go see your mother, her younger brother persuaded from what little separation a phone call could provide. You havent seen her since the funeral, and its only appropriate you pay your respects. She breathed a heavy sigh into her cell phone and looked at the screen, as if her brothers face would be present there with its signature disapproving glare. It was a look that accompanied about half of her decisions. It isnt easy to find the time and There isnt really a good excuse. Of all the days in the year, you owe her the courtesy, the respect, of going today, he went on. This isnt home. People dont really do those things here. It doesnt matter. Her grave is here, and she would want us to. Im planning to go on my lunch break at noon. Want to join me? he offered. But, she knew that offer was double-sided, double-edged. It hinted at her problem. It highlighted her unusual phobia. No-no. Ill go on my own. Ill need to get a few things together for remembrances, she said. But, youll go? You promise? her brother continued to press. Yes, she assured, Ill go. The cemetery closes at sunset, and the mausoleum doors lock at five. I know, she said wearily. Ill call you tomorrow. And with that, she ended the tedious exchange. It was all well and good for her brother, this honoring. Hed been closer to their mother in life and had missed her more keenly after shed passed a few months ago. It wouldve been all well and good back home, too, before they had moved to a new place in a new country. Celebrating Dia de los Muertos was so very common and the cemeteries wouldve been full of the living and well lit up after dark. But, in the city of steel and concrete that was her home now, and in the countryside cemetery where their mother had been buried, it was all too remote, alien, and frightening. She didnt like graveyards, and tombs were a terror beyond naming. The thought of being alone with the dead was unsettling, to say the very least. But, she knew her brother was right in this. She had to go. She had to go today. Her mother wouldve expected it of her, and she was certain that if she didnt go shed feel that parental chiding from beyond the veil. The rest of the afternoon was spent gathering up trinkets, mementos that her brother had forced on her after their mother had died. They were a mixture of heirlooms and gaudy objects from the apartment their mother had occupied in her later years and last days. They were things that were not her style, and none of the items held particularly fond memories. They belonged with their mother now and would provide the makings of a perfect shrine. Live plants and real floral arrangements were not accepted within the mausoleum walls, and she felt that the custodial staff or groundskeeper certainly wouldnt care for a dish of food being left either. Theyd probably issue a hefty fine for food left in the building, and theyd know just where to send the bill.

Trinkets were all shed have to bring, that and one small photo of her family as it had been decades ago father, mother, brother, and herself. She and her brother were all that was left now of that family unit. Her brother who had obeyed and been the dutiful son. She who had been the wild and willful sometimes spiteful daughter. But, none of that really mattered now. Those were the issues of the living, and today was for the dead. It was late in the season, as it always was for Dia de los Muertos, but she felt it more sharply than she ever had before. By four oclock in the afternoon the sun was already riding low in the sky. It had made its once great arc across the brilliant blue backdrop and was now fighting in fiery reluctance against its burial within the earth not that such a thing really happened giving way to the nighttime and the lunar orb which held its sway. Shed made her way into the large, vacant cemetery an hour before the phantom groundskeeper, whom shed never seen on her previous visit the day of the funeral, would lock the gates. There were no other cars and from what she could tell, no other visitors so late and so far from the city. No one else for thousands of miles cares what day it is. I doubt if anyone around here even knows. But, her brother knew. It would matter to him. He had taken time out of his workday to make the drive, and she was sure that when she knelt before her mothers crypt shed see a shrine already there that had been built by her brother. It mattered. She couldnt lie to him about going. And, in any case, she couldnt not go either. As she drove through the cracked and winding pavement roads of the cemetery, amidst old trees that trembled in the cold, making her way towards the back of the grounds that held the strong border of a wooded tree line, she saw the large mausoleum come into view. White-washed and weathered granite walls that stood as stone sentinels against the onslaught of the outside world; the living, breathing world that would like to tear at the tattered remains held within. It was an old building, historic and majestic. The arched ceilings and the fine architecture that paid careful attention to detail wouldve pleased their refined, albeit foreign mother. This is not the architecture of our people. This is not the style of home. But, it was beautiful all the same. Parking the car close to the main double doors, she gathered up her bag of memories and stepped out into the late evening. The few lingering leaves that clung to tired tree branches rustled in the foreboding winds that swept up from all directions as she shut her car door. It was as though the old cemetery were in some sort of strange vortex, was involved in some sort of grand sweep that she couldnt even begin to understand. An uncontrollable shiver ran through her as she peered out at all the tombstones glistening in the setting sun. Time flies. She was sure many of the folks buried out there never thought long or hard about their inevitable demise, what would be left after their life was all said and done. The big mistake most people made was in thinking they had more time.

Everyone always thinks there will be more time, until one day there isnt. One day time just runs out. These were the things that she never liked to consider and one of the many reasons she avoided places of the dead, unless they were simultaneously lit up and enlivened by the sounds and spirits of the living. As she made her way up the steps of the mausoleum and towards the main doors, those massive wooden monstrosities, the winds picked up again. They shoved her back and away, pummeling her with a ferocity she hardly believed. It was a major chore against such winds to even pull a door open, but she fought hard to do so, wanting to get in there. She wanted to drop off her mementos and then leave as quickly and quietly as possible. Staring at the setting sun as it started to dip below the horizon, she gave one final tug and made her way into the mausoleum with the wind howling at her back and the door slamming shut behind her. Once inside she was able to let loose a sigh of relief and gaze at the stunning array of colors the dying sun made when its rays met with the stained glass of thick art windows at the far end of the master hallway, the main hallway. Reds, blues, purples, and yellows all shone brightly, making the marble walls that held unspeakable things actually seem beautiful and unassuming. With no one else around, it was actually quite peaceful inside. If I dont think too much about what this place holds, it can actually be astonishingly beautiful. She made her way up a few carpeted steps to stand on marble floors in that proper space, peering off to her left and then her right at the first set of subsequent hallways, subsequent tombs, and silent crypts. The mausoleum consisted of two distinct levels the main level and the lower level. Each was nearly identical in architecture, outline, and arrangements. Their mother was buried at the far end of the second hall on the lower level. But, for some unknown reason, she didnt want to go there right away like she thought she would only minutes ago. She wasnt ready to see her mothers resting place just yet, even though shed only seen it one other time. I guess I dont really want to see what Id paid for all that badly. All the money she and her brother had laid out, thousands of dollars, bought very little when it came to eternal rest, eternal real estate. Instead, she found herself wandering around the main level. The majestic Doric order columns that lined the entire way made for an eerie sense of permanence. They did not and would not be moved. Tears did not sway them and time did not touch them. She took the first hallway to her right, feeling the stillness of the marble floors and the chill of the marble walls. Each seam-line denoted a resting place; each well-marked rectangle was a grave. There were names, many names, carved into each side. And, as she strode by she noticed all the symbols that accompanied each name crosses, stars, moons, swords, circles, flowers, and a wide variety of arcs. All of them denoted something of great importance to the once living person that lay just behind the symbol, right behind the wall. All of them probably meant something to the families, too. But, to her, a lot of it was just a waste of time and resources. How many eyes will see it? Do the dead even care once they are no more? 4

And, that led her mind to another and more troubling question. Are they no more? In her homeland, much like here, and much like in all the other cultures she knew about no more didnt really seem to be a widely embraced concept. As she turned to make her way back, to walk the segment of the hall that wouldve lay to her left when she came in, she heard it. Whispers. They were so faint at first. And in the failing rays of sunlight streaming through stained glass, she thought perhaps they were the sounds of waking rats, their claws moving about within the stone walls. But, no. These were not random sounds. It was not the noise of movement that she heard. It was whispering. It was a composition of words, words she was just shy of making out. Is that someone praying? Hello? she called awkwardly. Her two feeble syllables bounced off of every tomb to arrive back at her own ears countless times over. There was no human response forthcoming. No one was there. And as quickly as it had come on, the whispering stopped. My fears are getting the best of me. She sucked in a deep breath and decided to continue her pilgrimage through the mausoleum with purpose. There was plenty of time before the doors closed for the night, before someone came to lock them up tight. The mysterious groundskeeper, no doubt. By her estimation, she probably still had about an hour or so. She felt the need to move forward, move on, and do herself and her brother proud. She would see her mother. She would go to her crypt immediately and spend what time was left there. Before I have a chance to scare myself further. Before I scare myself silly. It was as she made her way down the first flight of stairs that the smells assailed her; the odors accosted her. They were a fleeting series of strong and foul stenches that nearly brought her to her knees. And then much like the whispers, just when she was getting ready to call out, to run head long down the second flight and towards her mothers grave, they dispersed, disappeared. But, it was then that the whispers returned. The sounds passed over her much like the smells had, moving on winds that did not exist inside the walls of the ancient mausoleum. Who is that? Whos there?! she practically yelled, picking up the shrill notes that were evident in her overall tone. The whispers made no sense. As they continued on, it was as a confused juxtaposition of voices and languages that she both recognized and simultaneously did not. There was no way to decipher a message or a thought or a prayer in all that chaos. Stop it! Windows rattled as winds picked up outside. She dropped her bag of memories on the step below and put hands over her ears as the whispers grew louder, grew closer, encircled her so that rancid breath brushed the sides of her face and the lobes of her ears. Stop it! Howling winds made stained glass shake. 5

She was overcome with words and whispers and foul breath. She could practically hear the gnashing of teeth. Stop it! she screeched into the throng to find there was no sound or smell or rattling of outside winds at all. Deep breaths filled her lungs. In and out she breathed in a frantic rhythm that settled a bit, as her eyes adjusted to the growing darkness and her brain took in the looming shadows that held nothing. Not yet anyway. She shook off the suggestion. She looked down at her dejected bag of trinkets and laughed, thinking herself to be nothing more than a victim of self-induced hysteria. What was going on was not that far removed from many of the nightmares that plagued her as a child. Shed told her parents about them when she was very young, and her brother when shed grown a tad older and her parents stopped listening. But when the taunting started, she ceased all together. She kept her nightmares to herself, infrequent as they were in her adult years, and carried her phobia around in silence. She carried it with her to this very day. And, now it has me. It has me right where it wants me. But, Ill be damned if it will stop me from doing this one thing, doing whats right. Whether her mother and she had been close was irrelevant. She needed to do this for herself, for her brother, and in honor of the woman who bore them. She picked up the bag, made her way down the second flight of steps, and landed in a second main hallway, or master hallway. It was just as lovely as the one on the main level, with stained glass windows and majestic columns. Although this hallway had something extra special about it. It had an ornate grandfather clock with a goldtoned metal face. She drew nearer to the clock, enchanted. And as she reached the point where her feet met its base, she scrutinized it up close to read an inscription Tempus fugit. Latin. The base of her evolved and native Spanish tongue. It was, in fact, the base of many tongues. Just how many she couldnt be sure, but some dormant part of her brain that held her formal college education seemed to recall that it was in the double digits. She gazed at the artful etching on the clock face again Tempus fugit. Time flies. There was almost no sunlight now, and the hallway to her left where her mothers grave resided looked impossibly dark. She clicked on the row of overhead lights using the switch that had a small wooden plaque above it. The plaque read: Please, turn off the lights when you leave. Will do. Her footsteps echoed loudly as she started her path down that corridor, but with each new footfall she noticed that she made less and less sound upon the strike even though she came down with just as much force. It was odd. The marble floor seemed to be absorbing the sounds. Or Ive just stopped making them. They were like the footfalls of the dead. She noticed, as she had on the day of the funeral, the hall her mothers tomb was in was practically vacant. 6

This hall is for new arrivals. So many empty tombs waiting to be filled. And, it was inevitable that they would be. Inevitable. Had she thought that word or did it come as a whisper?... It felt like a whisper but sounded like a thought. She whirled around and found no one behind her as she finally arrived before her mothers crypt. She took another deep breath and began to unpack, building a small shrine next to the one her brother had left earlier in the day. The picture was the last thing she pulled out of the bag and placed before her mothers grave. She looked at the fine silver frame, the perfectly clean glass, and the picture contained within. It gave all the appearances of a happy family caught momentarily in a better time. But, looks can be deceiving. There had been good times and bad, hardships and triumphs, loves and hates. It had all been there, and it was all too real. She felt like crying but was too cold to do so. It was impossible to say how long she knelt before those shrines, her own morbid remembrance art and her brothers, driven deep into the well of memories and the abyss of emotions. She swirled round and round within it all, within the vortex of her mind, finding smiles and sad fractures. She found rich epicenters of experience and unexplained gaps that could not be filled. As she surfaced, she looked to the side door on the lower level that led straight outside and up concrete steps to the cemetery pavement. It was pitch-black out there! Dark enough to be midnight! Oh shit! What time is it?! She didnt have a watch on or a cell phone with her. She checked her pockets twice to arrive at the same results. Oh shit! she declared out loud and to no one, to everyone. As her eyes were tearing themselves away from a fleeting glance at the faces in the frame, the shiny glass surface that protected the photo revealed movement. A shape had shifted right behind her. She leapt to her feet and turned in a swivel that practically knocked her over under the force. There was no one. But, it was dark, even with the lights on. And as she peered down the hall shed trod some time ago, she noticed that even though there was no one and nothing there, shadows slowly moved of their own accord. She closed her eyes tight and then opened them again. Many shadows began to emerge and move. They moved in no particular direction, just around and about, and some of them appeared to be drawing closer to her. It was a mad dash to the side door. She pressed hard against the cold metal lever to find it wouldnt budge. The door was locked! But, the lights were on down there. How could someone not notice and lock her in?... Unless someone wants me in here! She pounded with all her might against the glass to find that it, too, made no sound, just like the marble floors. The main doors!

She would have to go back down the hall, up the stairs, and through all those shadows that had whispering voices and rotten breath to even attempt the main doors. But, what other choice was there?... She ran like a woman deranged, a woman possessed, through the light and the dark, through the shadows with their gnashing phantom teeth and their rank whispering voices. Their misty appendages seemed to want to grab at her, claw at her and some seemed to want to contradict and push her forward and on her way but she went right through them, as if they had no mass and perhaps they didnt. They seemed to be trying to slow her down and speed her up, as her silent footsteps met no ears and her tears went from fiery hot to icy cold in the flash of an instant. Were they trying to surround her, hold her there? Did they want her to leave and never return? What were they saying and why? She cared and yet she then suddenly ceased to care, as her body hit up against the main doors. She tried one massive wooden door and then another, but no matter how much she banged and begged, it would not yield. She doubted if another living soul heard her on the outside. The doors were sealed. After a long assault, she found herself sinking into a huddle on the floor in front of those doors, dissolving into a puddle of tears. Maybe this is how it happens, like in my nightmares. Maybe Ill become like the mist people, the shadow people, the souls that are trapped in here. They had been trying to tell her something, and she hadnt listened. Was what they said good or bad? Helpful or not?... She didnt know. The whispering started in again, but it was no use. The way she had it figured, she was already screwed, despite what the voices were trying to tell her now. After an indeterminate amount of time, time that may have been flying or standing still, she decided to pull herself up and go back to the lit hallway and her mothers grave. And as she did so, as she made her way, she began to see shapes against the low light taking form and meandering about. They were people, hundreds of people, and each with a pair of glowing ember eyes that they kept on her. As she walked on cautiously, sometimes even stepping straight through one, she noticed they were talking, to each other and sometimes to her. But, what the hell were they saying? As she reached the area that held the ornate grandfather clock, she stopped. She tried to read its face for an estimate of the time, but the entire lower level main hallway had grown too dark. She walked slowly down the well-lit hall off to the left that was practically empty, heading towards the rectangle that held her mothers remains. But, about halfway there she stopped dead in her tracks. There was a figure, a human figure that wasnt a shadow and wasnt made of mist. He looked positively solid and reassuringly real. Dressed in coveralls smudged with dirt and heavy work boots, he stood near a tomb that lay open and waiting. The marble cover was off the wall and on the floor. Oh! she sighed and started walking briskly towards him. Are you the groundskeeper? I am so sorry. I didnt mean to stay this late, and I thought for sure I was trapped in here She was rambling and she knew it, but it felt so good to talk to the living. 8

He didnt say a word, but merely looked at her as though she were a curiosity, perhaps even a strange delight. And, she realized then that she must be quite the sight. She brushed at her clothes to straighten them and at her eyes to remove the salty tear residue. But as she removed what was left of her tears, she heard crying begin on all sides of her. It was a chorus of weeping and wailing. Im really sorry. I just got so scared, she spoke again, more to calm herself and to create a break in the sobbing that the man in the coveralls seemed immune to. As she came within an arms length, she held out her hand for an obligatory shake and an introduction. Im I know who you are, the groundskeeper spoke and then tilted his head to the side to indicate that she should follow his line of sight. It was when she glanced to her right and down towards the floor, following his lead, that she saw it. The marble slab that acted as a wall cover for the open crypt next to her mothers had a name on it, her name. And, you sure picked the wrong time to be in here. But, no matter, little lady. Time flies. Itll all be over soon. And, Ill be sure to turn the lights off for ya when I leave

Copyright 2012, Jennifer Adele. All rights reserved.