We couldn't really bury our dead when winter came - the ground was somewhere beneath the snow but no matter how much we dug out we never hit dirt. It was easier to to just lower their open caskets into the gaping chasm out by the mountains that led to the fast-flowing river of the Ockrow Caves, letting the current take them somewhere deep down into the earth.
It was kinder to not think about their poor bodies being dashed against sharp flint rocks, shredding them to fish food. We didn't eat the fish downstream for that very reason, you never knew who or what they'd been eating and we were all better off just pretending the bodies went into a nameless afterlife that didn't involve so many teeth.
We lied to ourselves forwell over a century that this was the best thing to do for our dead. I'd be hard pressed to name anyone who protested or came up with a better solution that didn't involve a mortician or two risking their lives trying to drive the bodies to somewhere with grounds we could bury our dead. Not that we wanted to have them resting so far from home.
Nobody believed the first few kids who said they saw the dead beneath the iced-over lake, nor were they believed when they said they saw more in the fishing pond or the town gutters. Not until they came back with photos showing several dozen people who'd died well over a year ago, peacefully floating just beneath the water's surface.
It was kinder to not think about their poor bodies being dashed against sharp flint rocks, shredding them to fish food. We didn't eat the fish downstream for that very reason, you never knew who or what they'd been eating and we were all better off just pretending the bodies went into a nameless afterlife that didn't involve so many teeth.
We lied to ourselves forwell over a century that this was the best thing to do for our dead. I'd be hard pressed to name anyone who protested or came up with a better solution that didn't involve a mortician or two risking their lives trying to drive the bodies to somewhere with grounds we could bury our dead. Not that we wanted to have them resting so far from home.
Nobody believed the first few kids who said they saw the dead beneath the iced-over lake, nor were they believed when they said they saw more in the fishing pond or the town gutters. Not until they came back with photos showing several dozen people who'd died well over a year ago, peacefully floating just beneath the water's surface.
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