Cold Falls the Rain
From the window in her room upstairs, the girl had a near perfect view of the little churchyard just across the way. She could easily see over its iron-spiked and rusted fencing and count the gravestones if she wished, right up to the ones that disappeared around the corner of the old church building. Most days, she could also see the little gravedigger. Most days, rain or shine, if there was work to be done, he would be the one to do it. Rain or shine, a stooped little man with a stooped and shuffling gate and a grim disposition as palpably cold as the earth he shifted. There he would be, cigarette in his mouth and shovel in his hand...digging, digging away.
