The boy’s name was . . . his name has nothing to do with him.
He was not remarkable to look upon, thin as a bone picked clean, his hands always ink-stained, his eyes dulled to a shade of black that made the midnight feel bland. Take him by no mistake, however, for his intellect was beyond the moon and the stars. Beyond what was acceptable for a young boy like him.
He spent his hours in a library not meant for the living, but in the cemetery: the broken-backed books, the cracked portraits, the fading monuments of men and women who had once breathed brilliance. It was not affection that drew him to the dead. It was necessity. The living had no time for him, the knowledgeable living, however, spat on him. Their days were spent in glittering halls, exchanging shallow words laced with contempt. Their whole lives were deception in the purest form.
The living respect only those who glitter. The dead, in their silence, demand nothing. The boy did not demand anything from the dead, nor did the dead from him—that’s how his exchange of knowledge worked.
The cemetery was quiet and mostly empty, surrounded by a low stone wall that had begun to crumble in places, perhaps an attempt to stop intruders to enter or to stop ghosts from leaving, he wouldn’t know. The ground was uneven, with patches of grass growing taller around some graves than others. The boy expected wilted flowers to grow all around the graves, and they were many the first time he came around. He plucked the wilted and planted anew, and watched them grow.
Most of the headstones were old, some chipped or tilted, their inscriptions were worn down by rain and time. He, however, realized that despite that their identify must have been whilst living, they had finished their time, and in their time they must’ve had some amount of knowledge unbeknownst to the living.
A few were newer, cleaner, with fresh flowers placed neatly in front of them and the boy kept his distance from them. They newer and cleaner graves, though not most of them, had wilted flowers growing around them. Ironic, the boy concluded, yet it was his own doing. Gravel paths ran through the cemetery, dividing the space into sections. Some graves had iron fences around them, rusted and bent, while others stood alone. The trees lining the perimeter gave sparse shade, and their dry leaves rustled faintly in the breeze. There was no sound except for the occasional bird and the crunch of footsteps on gravel. The air felt still, heavier than usual, as if the place asked for quiet without saying so. He sat cross-legged upon the cold stone floor, his fingers brushing against titles of men who had conquered kingdoms of thought. They spoke, and he listened. Maybe they didn’t, but he listened anyways. Their company was enough to generate their experiences because to the poor, even a dead king is more generous than a living beggar.
There were nights when the boy forgot that he lived at all, and on those nights, he lied next to the tombstones and they told him secrets: of failure disguised as success; of genius poisoned by loneliness; of wars fought in the mind that left no victor; of how they died and succumbed. And he drank it all in like a chalice filled to the brim.
The dead do not lie. It is the living who are cowards enough to soften their sins.
He grew thinner. Quieter. Weaker. Desperate. The rare moments when he spoke to the living, his words came out cracked and dry, as if he had no meaning, and if he didn’t, neither did his words. They called him mad, they called him cursed, they called him hopeless.
For at night, when the living slept bloated on comfort, he sat among kings and warriors, artists and prophets, and he was seen. He was felt, and to be seen by the dead is to be known completely, without pretence or mercy. The dead are the most honest.
Closer and closer to death he went, and he was aware that death would meet him soon. From starvation, or deprivation of joy, from deprivation of sleep, death gnawed at him, yet he enjoyed his cede and misery. One day, he would join the dead and know all of their secrets.