Once Upon a Grave

"Let's go Virginia!" Her mother snapped from the doorway as she waited for her daughter to lace her shoes. Six-year-old Virginia was so focused on the laces that she hardly heard her mother.

"Under the rabbit hole, around the tree..." She muttered to herself as she tried remembering the saying her mother told her to help her know which way to put the strings. Her tiny fingers were now stuck in the knot she just created. "Mooooommmmmmm!!" She cried in annoyance with the screech only a child can make.

Her mother did her best to resist rolling her eyes and walked over and tied her daughters shoes in seconds. Virginia watched in awe and wonder at the skill of her mother. "I'll never be able to do it that good," Virginia pouted.

"Hush your whining and let's go!" Her mother grabbed her hand and led her to the waiting carriage outside.

"Where are we going?" Virginia asked for about the millionth time that day as children seem to do.

"We are going to make a purchase, never you mind what it is."

But of course when you tell children not to worry themselves about something they do just that. The carriage pulled up in front of the church within minutes. The church that would soon be where Virginia would also go to school with all the other children in the town.

"Are we buying something from God?" Virginia questioned, her jaw dropping.

"No," her mother answered while lifting her down from the carriage, "please try to not ask so many questions."

They made their way to the back of the church where a man was standing waiting for them. He looked familiar. He was dressed in black with a white collar at his neck. He held a small black book in his hand which he was tapping against his leg. Then Virginia remembered where she'd seen him. He was the new pastor. She looked up at him curiously as he discussed something she didn't understand with her mother. He had a squished looking face, with beady eyes and not much hair. He wasn't the prettiest person she decided to herself, but he had a kind manner about him. She found herself wondering what it must be like to be a priest as they walked through the cemetery towards an empty area. Suddenly being a priest wasn't so interesting, but the open space was.

"Why are there no graves here?" She blurted out, unable to contain her need to know.

A look was exchanged between the priest and her mother before her mother said, "When we die, we will all be buried here."

"Here?" Virginia gasped as she stared at the grass with no headstones. She imagined herself being underneath the grass with a giant rock above it. "Where will I be? I want to be next to you mother."

Her mother smiled uncomfortably. Virginia watched as her mother eyed a patch of grass nearby, and she decided that this must be the place that would one day be hers. "Is that where I will be buried?" She questioned wide eyed in awe. Her mother nodded, her face twisting in regret.

Virginia couldn't get the patch of grass out of her mind even after they returned home. It would be hers when she died. In a gruesome sort of way she looked forward to dying. She resolved in that moment that since it was hers, she would visit her future grave every day, making sure it was always perfect. When school started she would spend recess at her future grave, munching on a sandwich or apple, contemplating what the earth would feel like once she was beneath it. She imagined that it would be cold and heavy, and especially dark. She considered how tying her shoes was much like where she would be buried. "Under the rabbit hole, around the tree..." She enjoyed saying this to herself often, taking comfort in her future resting place.

As a teenager Virginia would spend her weekends at her grave, making no friends after having been labeled as peculiar. She didn't care. At least she knew where she would end up no matter what happened in life or what people would say.

As life unfolded, Virginia's fixation on the cemetery intensified. Each passing day brought her closer to what she considered her true home. With advancing age and the loss of family members, she felt increasingly connected to the graveyard where they lay. For her, it was a comforting thought: her loved ones resting in eternal peace, and her own place awaiting her.

In her senior years, Virginia's journey culminated where it began. A sudden heart attack claimed her life while she visited her grave. She was discovered lying atop the plot she had long cherished, her final moments entwined with her lifelong obsession. Death embraced her, fulfilling the fixation that had consumed her since youth. Virginia's relentless preoccupation with death and her resting place ultimately defined her journey, sealing her fate beneath the earth she had so fervently embraced.