Fire Girl’s Grave

"She lived before she died," are the words inscribed in stone. Calloused fingers brush the words, which are barely visible now in the cemetery dying light. The young man kneels by the grave, presses his hands into the dirt just to feel closer to her, and lets another tear water the ground where the flowers planted by her funeral procession are in bloom. A deep groan wants to rise up from his gut, but he suppresses it. It's all so wrong- it should have been him- she was too good, too full of life... It should have been him.

He stands to his feet, wipes his soiled hands on his jeans, and picks a violin case from the ground.

"For you," he whispers, and he plays.

The music goes on and on and on, rising, falling, haunting, and that old violin in its young musician's hands creaks out a sad song to the girl who briefly was and never more will be. In the stillness, in the emptiness and deadness of the summer night, the tune fills the cemetery like a ghost. Every night the ghost appears, the music plays, and fresh tears fall on the still fresh grave of the girl who danced with fire.