Necropolis Burning
by Bruce Boston
No one knew how it started. The dead don't smoke. Smoke at first rose from a single gravestone. Then several more. A sickly yellow haze, rife with the stench of burning corpses, obscured the cropped lawns and temple mausoleums of the lifeless city. The dead don't light candles or celebrate the Fourth of July. The fire lay deep within the twisted catacombs that laced the underworld of the underworld of Necropolis, a dank and leaden labyrinth of tunnels where no soul was consigned to pass. The tombs of the dead are not heated. There are no fires of wood, oil, or gas. From the high towers of Necropolis -- thick with dust draped in clinging tendrils -- as far as the eye could see, columns of smoke rose from the patchwork landscape. Perhaps a passionate love affair, still incendiary beyond the grave, had ignited the blaze. Perhaps the weight of history, braced heavily against the polished stones, slipped and struck a spark that condemned the city to the engulfing flames. At last all the dead would be burned to ash. # # # |