The Haunted Traveler Vol. 2 Issue 1

I think about death while I am walking the streets of the graveyard
city underneath the skeleton branches of trees which are naked and
exposed, and I see the red lights of taverns are lit up for the action of
booze, gambling, whoring and the like.
I think about death when my back aches and the shovel breaks
and the ceiling of the small church leaks.
I think about death because of life feeding on life all around.
I think about death because of smashed insects on the ground.
I think about death through the blank, black, bleak visions of
numb nothingness that come when my mind attempts to think about anything
else.
I think about death when red spiders crawl on my arm as I walk
through a large, intricately woven web near to where my digging is to be
done.
I think about death while masses of copper and yellow-tinted
snakes with diamond-shaped heads slither around my boots as I light my
candles and incense, preparing to sing my sorrowful song to the universe.
I think about death when a freshly deceased body, still in the
stage of rigor mortis, smells of the shit released from the body’s colon,
and the wrist and finger bones snap like twigs no matter how carefully
the process of preparing the dead vessel for the next stage is managed.
I think about death when I recall the day I signed up for my current
position. Thirty-nine years old, no relatives, no friends, no money,
and no shelter other than a small nook beneath the overhanging gutters of
the church located in front of the graveyard. The spot where I was found
by the pastor who preached to the small congregation and took care of
the business of handling the plots on the grounds.
I think about death because, as I accepted the job the pastor
offered me in exchange for a small weekly wage and a tiny room in the
workshop located between the church and graveyard, I also, in that moment,
accepted the responsibility of dealing with the one line of work
(having no proper education) that I am sufficiently versed in: harvesting
death and playing the part of its groom.
I think about death as my wife. She can not die on me as everyone
else in life has done. No, with death as my mistress, it will be she
who must wait on me.
I think about death because of pumping organs, flowing veins,
and beating rhythms within the body that, like the gears of any machine,
break down, tear apart, malfunction, and eventually die.
I think about death when flames leap from the wrathful tongues
of righteous men who spit cursed sermons about brimstone and a fiery
apocalyptic conclusion to this world that ends with much dying.
I think about death when the pastor who houses, feeds and pays
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