Morning.

Where did that come from? The last thing he remembered, a talking woodchuck was lecturing him on the inevitability of sleep, and now here he was. In a graveyard.

All around him. Graves. It was a bit depressing. He thought of his father.

'Hermit,' they called him, or 'recluse.' What did they know, anyway.

Good question.


* *

He couldn't even remember his name. He needed a smoke really bad. That always used to be his breakfast, 3 cigarettes, 2 mugs of coffee. Now he had nothing.

Nothing except that goddamn woodchuck/gopher/groundhog.

"Good morning! I do say, it is nice and bright!"

"We're in a fucking graveyard."

"I know! Don't you want to know, too?"

"Know what?"

"Exactly!" The woodchuck twitched his nose.

He had no time for this critter. "Ok, yeah, I do want to know. I want to know why I woke up in a frickin' graveyard."

"Because you died."

**

Pastor Derald Tutmouse stood smiling at his congregation. Funerals were always his favorite time to lecture his sheep (as he affectionately called them) on the impermanence of life and the necessity to dedicate whatever meager resources each had to the building of the Church.

Women were weeping. Children were crying. The men stood stoically outside, ushering in the Red Men.

to be continued...