Bottles in the reeds.

When we reach the cemetery, Josh turns on his brights to illuminate the gravel road and the flowers left at headstones. Our headlights spear the darkness that blankets the hill. Here, darkness is peace as the dead dream in shades of black. Our lights are loud and screaming and their brightness is violent. I look at Mat’s eyes to see if the light pains him the way it pains me. They are engaged blankly forward, but I see his lashes gently shiver and I know he is my friend. The lights overexpose the silk petals attached to plastic stems and the flowers become blind white ghosts that haunt the six-foot deep wooden boxes they honor.

We stop at the crest of the hill and Josh turns off engine and lights. The moment the lights disappear, a whip of lightning flashes over the ridge to the north. Above us, a pure black sky has chased away the moon and stars, but to the north, and the sky is purple. The lightning cracks illuminate the brush strokes that paint the clouds.

I climb out of the car and lean against the hood next to Mat. Josh pulls some warm beers out of the trunk, and hands them to us. At the bottom of the hill, there’s a little pond with a granite sign beside it. When the lightning flashes, I read that it says Memorial Pond. There’s a wooden bench beside it, and as the sky continues to darken, this seems like an okay place to watch the world tear part. Mat heads toward it first, and Josh and I follow.

We drink the beers and say nothing. The wind picks up and dusts us with rain, but the storm passes us to the west, towards the glow of the city.

“I wanted the storm,” Mat says. I think he is crying. It is Josh’s job to say something, but he is silent and so am I.

As the storm moves, the purple sky shrinks and goes with it. We hear the crickets and the graves watch our backs.

“We should go somewhere,” Josh says and stands up. Mat stays seated, finishes his beer, and throws his bottle into the water. We stay like this for a few minutes, and then Josh sits back down. Once the sky is black again, and the glow from the storm has passed into the glow of the city, Mat stands.

“Okay,” he says. We walk back up the hill to the car, and we are bottles in the reeds, floating near the shore waiting to sink and be filled.