Imperial Literature

Last night I had a dream so vivid I felt the need to put it down in writing.

The dream was short and there were no words spoken or events that took place. The visual and emotional atmosphere of the dream was what truly made it remarkable. I saw a man, incredibly ancient and broken from years of hard labor, standing beside a freshly dug grave holding an old battered shovel. To the left and right of this grave were other graves, all occupied, and freshly filled. All around were graves and the further from the old man you looked, the older and more overgrown the graves became, stretching on past the horizon.

Since it was a dream, there were details that were understood without being expressed in words or imagery. It was understood that the man had single-handedly dug and filled every grave in the cemetery. It had been his task of decades. Every person the man had ever known was buried in that cemetery. Some cataclysm years ago had taken them all away in one fell swoop. He was all that was left, and he had spent every day since then laying those he had survived to rest.

The feeling of sadness and loss was palpable. The sun was sinking below the horizon in the distance. The man stood and watched as it disappeared below the horizon. He shed no tears because he had long since shed all the tears he had to shed.

The open grave was his last. He had finally finished his task. The last grave was his. As darkness set in he closed his eyes and lowered himself into his grave and then everything was dark. There was no moon or stars in the sky; only blackness. But in the final moments before I awoke, I could have sworn I heard the mournful sound of a woman singing, calling her beloved to join her from beyond the grave.