(The prompt was “tradition” this time around).

 

It was that time of year again.

The time to drag all the members of the household to the local graveyard and stare at the sky.

Andrin hated this tradition.

For one thing, it was freakin’ cold.

For another, it was a freakin’ graveyard.

And for the last, freakin’ Alina always hogged the freakin’ blankets.

But there was nothing for it. November 1^st had come and by golly, the parental units were committed.

Andrin trudged behind his sister as his parents crammed the minivan with blankets and thermoses. It took a good deal of pushing and shoving, because who knew when was the last time that the vehicle had been cleaned? There was also a sneaking suspicion that all the missing ballet shoes and soccer cleats were hidden somewhere in the vicinity and adding to the general cramped atmosphere.

Alina refused to sit behind dad because he put his chair back too far and crushed the legs of whoever was behind him. Which of course led to the age-old argument of Andrin’s legs being too long to sit behind the man and Alina’s complaint that Andrin curled up in the seat anyway, so what did he care?

Well, of course he always curled up, because he always got stuck behind dad and did she think he was a masochist to let his legs get crushed like that? Which led to mom playing referee with a whistle that she had managed to find wedged between the cushions of the passenger’s seat and dictating who sat where based on the proximity of each child to the nearest seat….which of course led to Andrin being behind dad….again.

Legs uncomfortably stashed beneath his chin, Andrin glared at his sister as she leisurely stretched out behind the passenger’s seat and wrapped at least three blankets around herself.

And as they lurched down the road at stupid o’clock in the evening, dad began his story of how he and his friends used to do this during their college days to get away from it all and go somewhere quiet. And mom would chime in about how she had been invited one year and they had settled on a graveyard, because where else would the sky not be obstructed by all of the city lights?

And then, they would laugh, there was that cow that mooed in the distance and scared everyone into thinking the graveyard was haunted because it sounded more like a scream than a mild lowing. Don’t you remember how a couple of their friends had gotten lost when they went exploring and everyone else had been content to lay quiet on the ground and watch them stumble around until someone finally took pity on them and told them where the rest of the group lay?

Good ol’ what’s his name started singing at that point and everyone joined in even though they didn’t know the words. And they spent – here Alina and Andrin looked at each other and joined in with exasperated looks – three hours in the graveyard that night. And that’s how the tradition started.

Which is why Andrin is now helping his family drag all of the blankets out of the minivan, along with a thermos or two, and tromping over the bones of people hundreds of years dead to find a spot where the headstones were spaced out broadly enough for a family of four.

They found a good location between Thaddeus Bolmont III, Beloved Husband and Son, and Fanny Hornwell, Gone but Not Forgotten, and spread out the blankets….or at least the ones that Alina conceded to release. She then promptly squished herself between both parents to ensure she would have the best heat sources and left the edge of the blanket – again right next to dad and his outrageously akimbo limbs – for Andrin.

The three of them stared at him expectantly.

Well, he shouldn’t just stand there, didn’t he want to see the stars? And even if he didn’t, he was blocking them for the rest of the family, do sit down.

He got the blanket that was really more of a towel and did nothing to keep out the cold and settled down next to he of the pointy elbows. And of course he found the rock that would try to dig itself into his spine before the end of the night right away. He wiggled around but that only got a comment of wasn’t he old enough not to fidget anymore?

He sighed and settled with his friend the rock and tried not to envision that it wasn’t a rock but good ol’ Gone but Not Forgotten’s index finger poking him in the back to remind him that it wasn’t polite to lie on other people’s bones.

And here came the comments of how still it was, how bright the stars were, doesn’t it make you feel small, and did you see that – it must have been a shooting star! Did you make a wish? And one by one, the chatter died off as the family settled more and Andrin grudgingly turned his gaze to the sky.

And it was still.

It was bright.

It did make him feel small.

So small, in fact, that he felt like all of his worries and complaints and fears were suddenly quite dim and frivolous. The sky was laughing at all of it, urging everyone to escape from the clinging, scraping, grasping things of the earth.

Look up, little one! It seemed to call. Look up!

And as he gazed into that gaping, wide open world above – free from obstruction, noise, and the ever glowing screens of the modern world – he thought maybe this tradition wasn’t so bad after all.