Burial Ground by Sage Tyrtle

My hand curls around my phone in my pocket, even though it flickered from 1% battery to a dimmed screen and then to black a week ago. I am wearing long johns, jeans, three t-shirts, a sweater, gloves, and my Canada Goose coat with the hood up. Eric is ahead of me, skipping, looking eleven instead of thirty-one. He squats down, moving dead leaves to the side. He turns and shouts, ‘Babe! I found the perfect burial ground!’

High Park is empty. And for a moment it seems possible that Eric and I are the last humans in Toronto. Intellectually I know they are standing in water lines (where we should be), in food bank lines (where we should be), they are driving their cars with the last of the gas east, west, north, south. To Electricityview and Waterville. Full tank of gas, maybe three hundred miles? I think fantasyland is farther away than that.

I catch up to Eric, who is cheerfully attacking the ground with a small plastic shovel. I sit next to him and take a turn. The shaft is already bending dangerously but there’s only two inches to go now.

‘I wish we had a priest,’ says Eric, his eyes glittering.

I make my voice deep and grandiloquent. ‘As it hath pleased the Almighty God to take unto Himself the souls of our two phones, we therefore commit their bodies to the grooound. Plastic to… plastic, uh…’

‘Ugly cheetah pattern phone case to never-degrading ugly cheetah pattern phone case! Ashes to ashes! Dust to -’ The shaft of the shovel breaks and Eric pushes my hands away. He scrabbles at the dirt. Just one inch now.

I watch his frantic hands and wonder how long I will be able to keep that voice at bay, the one I’ve imprisoned in the back of my head that wants to know why we are at High Park holding a funeral for two useless black rectangles instead of stocking up on cans of beans and can openers and walking as far south as we can. (And water. Don’t forget water. But water is so heavy and vanishes so fast. What about bikes? What if we rode bikes? Wouldn’t bikes make us a target for thieves? No. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.)

Eric sweeps his hand over the hole. ‘Milady, the grave is prepared. Please gently place your loved one inside.’

I put my phone in the hole, glad that it will have a friend in that long goodnight. Eric places his phone on top, making sure they face each other. He sprinkles a bit of dirt on top and so I do the same, then we work together to fill the hole until it’s a small mound.

We sit next to the grave. I lean into his shoulder and his hand finds mine.

Eventually, the sun goes down.

Sage Tyrtle is a professional storyteller. Her stories have been featured on NPR, CBC, and PBS. She is a Moth StorySLAM and GrandSLAM winner. She’s also one of those Americans who swanned around saying, ‘If this gets any worse, I’m moving to CANADA,’ but then she really did. Find Sage at @sagetyrtle and www.tyrtle.com.