‘‘The Nation’s Smallest Graveyard’ seems like the sort of place that would be reserved for one heroic individual who traded their life for the life of another- for someone who faced death, unflinching, because they knew their end would be the continuation of another’s. Or maybe a child, I suppose. A lovable cat.
‘The Nation’s Smallest Graveyard’ doesn’t appear to hold any of these things- doesn’t appear to be anything but what it claims. It’s about a yard squared and it sports a couple dozen miniature tombstones indicating, one has to assumed, a couple dozen lots. ‘The Graveyard’ is old and its stones are so small that it’s proven impossible to decipher what words may once have indicated for whom this honorable place was cordoned off and why they were so small. Some believe it’s an old pet cemetery- the sort of place put together by somebody who is handling a pet all wrong. Others believe it is a proper graveyard, but that the lots each hold only a finger of the interred. Why? Nobody is sure. There’s no historical context. Nothing in legend. It would be as weird a thing to do in the olden days at it would be now.
Then, there’s ‘The Southeast Lot,’ on which someone has taken to placing a flower. Blue petals. Yellow center. The flower is miniature like the grave and nobody can identify it or find a living sample. These things together, a Wayside destination make. It’s all mystery- senseless mystery- and for some reason, everybody is too scared to dig the place up and solve it.
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
