UNEMPLOYED IN THE CEMETERY


       Pedro Petz worked in the city cemetery, like his father did and grandfather before him. It was an inherited position and was secure, since everyone had to die. Besides that, Pedro was an Indian, so it was hard for him to get employment, since he was on the last wrung of the status quo of his country. On the top sat those with Spanish blood, for it seemed the conquistadores never left.

       Pedro was one of the workers who tended the grounds around the numerous graves. He never went to school, but what the learned there was a worthy education. For instance, in the entrance were the mausoleums. There were sculptures made by Italians, who were imported to do the work. These belonged to the very wealthy, mostly of Spanish linage. The one exception was dedicated to a gypsie named Sasha, who committed suicide when her Spanish beau returned to Spain to marry into royalty. There was an effigy of her on the tomb and a belief that she would give you good fortune in romance, if you asked her. The youths wrote messages of supplication on her image. Pedro saw all this and noted that sometimes their wishes were answered.

       There was one part of the cemetery where there was a Christmas image on all the graves. It was a six point star, just like the ones they used in the processions for the Christmas celebrations.

     In another section there was another symbol on some of the graves. It was a strange combination of to angles joined in opposite directions. It left a foreboding feeling for Pedro. The area was rimed with trees that gave a remorse shade, for they never turned green. He did not know what a swastika was, nor was he aware there had been a world war.

       Pedro learned that the extreme poor were not laid under the earth. They were put in niches above the ground, that the city had built. There they would rest, in simple boxes for so many years. He never found out  how long that period was, nor what happened to the coffins after that. He never asked but realized that if you were very poor you could not go back to the earth you came from. You had to wait your turn for that.

      If you were not desperately poor you could afford to purchase a plot of earth for the displacement. It was six foot down and had a wooden cross to mark its location. Later, those who were able to improve their economic situations, covered the cement graves with tile or even artificial marble. If finances would permit, they might build a little ch apple at the head, over the tomb stone.

       For these improvements, the caretaker received a pittance, which most of them used to buy home made liquor, to lift their spirits. That was because to live with the dead left you with nothing less than a morbid cognizance that, within time, you would occupy the same space below. Therefore, the liquor helped to soften that reality.

       There was no such a thing as cremation. It was not practiced, nor was it the custom of Pedro's Maya predecessors.

        As such Pedro Petz passes his days and years, which was supposed to go on until the end, in the tradition of his ancestors. Then, something completely unexpected happened.

       The cemetery caretakers were informed that  new virus had arrived at his impoverished country. It came from somewhere called China and that there would be thousands and perhaps millions of deaths because of it. At first Pedro thought that would create more work for everyone, which was a logical assumption. But, that didn't happen and the city officials decided to close the cemetery. The arrangement was based on the scientific speculation that the virus traveled in open spaces, filled with people, who carried the disease from unknown places.

       At least that was the way that Pedro understood it, as he walked through the iron gates, now unemployed in the cemetery.