By: Bob Zox

The car pulled into the foggy cemetery driveway at four-thirty in the morning. The
gate was locked, but the young man parked anyway, no one would be around until at
least seven. He and his love liked to come here, the familiar place, and familiar
memories here comforted them, a stable, unchanging place in an unpredictable and
disappointing world.

The moonlight being enough, as it brightened and dimmed in the passing fog, he
turned off the lights that briefly illuminated the marble crypts of the mausoleum,
and they both got out. She pulled on her black leather jacket, he put on his black
trench coat, as they walked to the side of the gate driveway to the pedestrian
entrance, the black wrought iron gateway arch was always open. Vines had grown over
the years, intertwined with the wrought iron bars, the leaves gone in the November
fall season.

As the couple stepped softly on the sidewalk towards the moonlit mausoleum, a
fleeting glimpse of flashing black against the gray fog, above the great structure
caught her attention: a bat, artfully twisting and turning after the moths that had
been disturbed by their car headlamps. Their night time visit meant death for the
moths, and life for the bats. The plus and minus cancelled out any guilt she felt
for triggering the ancient struggle for existence.

He put his arms around her small waist as they reached the foot of the steps, and
facing her, looked at her eyes. Even now, her eyes reflected color, but now it was
deep burgundy, her lips pale pastel lavender. On her fair face in the moonlight,
they made her into an image of love that shone with a cold light, a goddess fit for
the cemetery, a goddess that would make a man welcome death.

She put her arms inside his trench coat, and looked into his eyes, but his back was
to the moonlight. Only darkness could be seen in his face, but she could feel the
affection, his worship of her. His face came closer, his nose rubbing hers, in a
deliberate, prolonged search for her lips. He kissed her, breathing in her scent,
feeling the cold fog as he inhaled. She was breathing in too, taking in his smell,
and the smell of the leaves decaying in the soil, the cold moisture in the fog, a
thousand sensations at once. Her senses were overloaded, trying to listen and speak
at the same time in this elementary communication between man and woman.

He pulled her closer, wanting to devour her if he could, breaking off the kiss, he
kissed her cheek, then bit her neck where it met her shoulders, she gasped at the
sensation. Looking up, she saw that the bat was flying towards the mausoleum,
under the great roof, and hung itself upside down, claws grasping a chipped edge
inside. It stared back at her, eyes faintly reflecting green dots.

Here they were safe from the world of the living. The cemetery was the only place
where there were people with no problems. Sanctuary.

The night time sky was beginning to glow: sunrise was coming. Time for bats to sleep.