Mausoleum

In the small town where I grew up there really wasn't much to do in the form of entertainment, unless it was summer and baseball was in full swing. There was the pool of course, and we certainly did spend a lot of time there. Also, there was Dairy Ann, a local restaurant located on the main road (all half mile of it) which catered to truckers in for a quick lunch and convo. With fifty cents and time to kill, we'd sit in the booths and listen to the talk; watch as slices of pie were scooped out of countertop displays. The world was all dust outside, dust and a sun bleaching everything white. What to do next? Go to the park? Go to the library? Go buy candy at the supermarket? No. Then what then? Sometimes we'd drift to the graveyard, because death and green grass were alluring pulls. High up on the hill, gravestones overlooked the prairies of eastern Kansas. Gravestones with names and dates so long ago; civil wars and sickness, fires, childbirth, all faded now. It was cold there with a breeze winding through. A mausoleum stood making shadows and we gathered to read the inhabitants, lingering at the spaces yet unfilled.