The Merry Cemetery

Jerome Lancaster had fallen out of love with life over the course of 3 years, little by little and then all at once, the way safety pins disappear around a house. You don’t worry as each one goes missing… not until the day you really, desperately need one.

Him being here, 5000 miles away from home, in the Merry Cemetery, was nothing but a testament of love for his wife, Olivia. It was she who always had a particular interest in tombstone tourism and he just played along, making sure he caught the perfect angle of gothic mausoleums, ancient crypts and crooked, mossy thumb stones. For Olivia, cemeteries meant more than a simple burial ground – they felt like intimate invitations, to honor and contemplate the inevitable passage of time. Their honeymoon in Paris had included a full day dedicated to Père Lachaise, following a small-scale map while making sure they wouldn't miss any of the VIPs. How visibly distressed she'd been when they couldn't find Jim Morrison's grave, as if Jim Morrison were still a person waiting for them to join him over a glass of whisky, and they never arrived, and he was disappointed. He scoffed at her and told her not to worry, they would meet their host next time.

Jerome let out a sigh. That’s the thing about cemeteries, he thought. They are filled with people who thought they had more time.

The Merry Cemetery, the guide had explained, transforms death into celebration with its colorful crosses and satirical epitaphs. Jerome looked down at his shoes, then up at the sky – a sea of blue that seemed to swallow him whole. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, forced his hands steady and took out his glasses to read the carved scarlet letters on one of the crosses.

‘Beneath this heavy cross you saw

Lies my old mother-in-law.

Had she lived a tad much longer

I’d be buried, she’d be stronger.

Passing folks, please walk with care

Don’t disturb her, please don’t dare

She’ll wake and grumble, just as she

Did every day she lived with me’

As he stared at the epitaph, he realized he'd never felt this way about Lucy. Not once. Lucy, who had entrusted him with her only daughter, who sold her house so they could buy theirs, then lived nomadically—always a guest, never home—while they nested. ‘Sometimes, it takes a village’ she’d said, while tilting his chin up in encouragement.

Lucy, who still calls to ask if he’s sleeping better, invites him over for homemade food and comments endlessly on his weight loss. She wants him to do well, to be well. This expectation drills into his chest.

He declines Lucy’s invitations because he sees Olivia in her eyes—the same shape, the same color—and because she still believes he can be saved. Watching her bury her daughter while still trying to mother him feels unbearably twisted.

Beyond that, he disliked her apartment. A rental. Small and crowded and foreign. It had order and discipline and yet somehow it looked wrong, like when a hermit crab finds a shell that fits well enough —protective but never quite right, chosen in haste rather than comfort.

When their house was done, Olivia made a timid proposal about her mother moving in, to which he responded with a calm but firm tone that he needed his privacy. They never spoke of it again.

A sudden coolness in the air made him tug the last two buttons of his shirt against the chill. He gazed at the houses leaning against the cemetery walls. A few porches glowed under low-hanging bulbs, and he thought he heard a mother calling her children for dinner. Life continued here, unperturbed, moving steadily alongside those who remained in the afterlife.

A tall cross, capped with a small metal roof to protect the painting beneath, depicted a round, cheerful woman dressed head to toe in traditional attire. The image seemed to sway with movement, as if caught mid-step. Jerome squinted at the lettering and began to read the epitaph.

‘Dancing always lit my fire,

Seventy — I didn’t tire.

Even sick, I’d dance around;

Spinning in my evening gown

Now I’m sleeping, still as clay

Dance for me, in your own way.’

He stood there, staring at the painted woman and tried to recollect when was the last time he felt like dancing. Or felt like doing anything at all. He was undoubtedly functional, but empty on the inside, like a can of soda holding pencils.

He'd come to prefer cemeteries. The dead expect nothing, ask nothing. But here was this woman, demanding he dance. Just like Olivia had. He resented her and this woman also, for making him promise something he had no desire to do. And the more he resented her, the guiltier he felt, the more annoyed he became, the more eagerly he wanted to dance the night away. But of course, he wouldn’t. Doing nothing at all felt comforting, lucid, familiar.

‘Play me Phil Collins and let's dance’ Olivia had said once, in one of her final days, right from that bed, webbed in hospital tubing. He'd lifted her body just enough so she could sit upward, leaning on the pillow, and he pressed his cheek to her cheek in gentle movements. She smelled of iron and salt and a groovy kind of love.

‘Never lose your love for life,’ she whispered. ‘Never stop dancing, Jerome. Or I'll come down and haunt you!’

Hopefully, Olivia would hold her promise.

Jerome stumbled along the paved alley as he made his way back. He used the light on his phone to illuminate the path. Stars shone brightly overhead, but the moon was nowhere in sight. The narrow alleys twisted like a spiderweb, and the cemetery had darkened into black. He rushed toward the exit, his heart pounding faster. Oh, Olivia would have loved this—she would have said, ‘It’s not the dead you must fear, Jerome. It’s the living.’

At a turn, he bumped into one of the crosses that had an edgier front. His phone dropped to the ground at the base of the wooden structure, and its beam became a spotlight, revealing the last epitaph of the day.

‘Finally, I rest. In peace.

My husband could test the saints

With his nagging and complaints

Should he wander near this stone,

Tell him with a bitter tone —

This is MY place. Mine alone.’

Jerome straightened his back, brushed his fingers through his hair, and noticed a smile tucked into the corner of his lips. He set the thought aside, letting Olivia’s words linger in his mind:

‘Live well and never forget to laugh, Jerome,’ she had told him. ‘And when all is done and dusted, buy a resting place next to mine, but not so close—I need my space.’

Jerome thought of home. A four-bedroom, three-story house. Enough to roof a large family, with children and pets and a kind mother-in-law. None of which they ever had. All he had now was space—vast yet suffocating. Highly unnecessary.

He thought of Lucy again and felt a knot in his stomach. Olivia had asked once, then never again. He got his privacy. She got her dream house. Lucy got to be a guest once in a blue moon.

That's what parents were supposed to do, wasn't it? Help their children, then step back quietly. He'd believed that once.

He stood at the cemetery gates, looking back at the sea of blue crosses under starlight. Somewhere behind him, someone was laughing. Or maybe that was just the wind.

He’d barely taken two steps when he felt something stick to his shoe. Horse manure. He wiped the sole of his loafers on the grass, grumbling. It made him think of that annoying little neighbor's cat that always left its droppings on his lawn. He tightened his fists. The thought of confronting the neighbor petrified him, as if he was a lawyer, pleading in court. This was always Olivia’s responsibility — talking with strangers, sorting things out, finding loose ends, getting him out of trouble. It may have been the distance from home that gave him the courage, but he made a mental note to speak up once he got back.

He straightened his jacket and adjusted the cuffs while putting his thoughts in order. He thumbed his wedding ring. Three years and he still couldn’t decide if wearing it was a sign of resilience or a sign of weakness. Perhaps a little bit of both. A sharp thought crossed his mind. Maybe he should sell that house. He made another mental note to perhaps speak to a real estate agent once he got back and then maybe, with the money, buy Lucy a small house of her own.

The guide had mentioned another cemetery in this country, close to the seaside—a resting place for a pirate named Cook, a princess, and lost sea wolves. How many cemeteries would he have to visit before he finally gathered the courage to move on? Would he ever see a mausoleum, or a cross, or a grave that would bring that massive, propelling revelation and wake him? He didn’t know. But standing in place felt worse somehow.

He began walking. Not towards something. Just away from here.