Hide Me Among the Graves

“She chose to reject me!”

That wasn’t a choice, lad—that was an empty gun saying click.”

After a few seconds, he said, “You’re devout, aren’t you? Some species of Christian, I imagine?”

She smiled faintly. “Yes.”

“I would say that was a mark against your intelligence, but since you’re both nice girls, I won’t say it. But you assume a sequel to this life, one in which noble sacrifices are rewarded, or at least noted. I’m convinced that no note is taken at all, and that, as far as any one of us is concerned, the universe comes to an end at the moment of his death.”

I’m not a joiner. Any time you work with people, they turn out to be inept clowns.

Gabriel scowled through his glasses. Why were ghosts such imbeciles? Who could be blamed for striving, at any cost, to avoid forever the decay-of-self that death was?

“William will marry eventually,” he said in a quieter tone. He’ll try to have children—he doesn’t believe any of this.”

“Not even in God,” said Maria sadly, shaking her head, “who is our only hope.”

“And an unhelpfully remote and theoretical hope, at that,” Gabriel snapped.