James Etheridge

From where he lay, the lion saw them coming. They had scaled the brick wall surrounding the cemetery and moving toward him wearing black clothes, gloves and masks. Each of them was carrying a bag. He watched them carefully as they crept past the grave markers of the three thousand unknown souls he watched over that night, just as he had done each day and night for the past one hundred and twenty-six years.

When they reached the iron fence that surrounded the lion, they climbed the fence and stood in front of him. One of them took a can out of his bag and then stepped up onto the pedestal upon which the lion rested. He then grabbed the lion’s ear and began to spray red paint from the can into the lion’s eyes. The paint burned and stung as they all began to laugh. The vandal continued to spray until the lion’s entire face was covered with red paint.

Several more climbed up and began to cover his body with red paint, from where the spear had been driven into his side and broken off, to his tail, to the flag which he clutched with his right paw and rested his head upon. The paint ran down the side of the lion’s body and onto the pedestal. They all climbed down and as the other vandals began painting over the inscription carved into the pedestal, the one that had spray painted his face reached into his bag, producing a hammer and a chisel.

He climbed back up onto the pedestal and chiseled out the lion’s eyes. He then knocked out his teeth and chiseled his nose from the bridge to the tip. He hacked off his whiskers, carved up his chin and finally broke two toes off of his front left paw. The lion howled in agony. The vandal then jumped down off of the pedestal and over the fence. They stood and laughed at the lion, hurling curses and insults at him. Then they turned and ran toward the three thousand unmarked graves.

The lion tried to let out a roar, but it would not come. The vandals began to overturn headstones and kick up grass and dirt. Then they began to deface the headstones with red and blue paint. Though the vandal had chiseled out his eyes, the lion was still able to see. He saw with his heart and the three thousand souls within him. It was then that the lion saw those souls, swirling through the limbs of the trees and in the air above the graves. Laughing, the vandals then ran for the brick wall surrounding the cemetery. They scaled it and disappeared into the darkness, not knowing that the souls of the graves they had desecrated were following close behind, as they would for eternity.

The remaining souls returned to their graves. Many of them were little more than children. They had fought in a war many of them did not truly understand. They died unknown and were buried in unmarked graves. Their families never knew what became of them, where or how they fell. They only knew that they never came home. The night was still, dark and quiet. Lying defaced and humiliated on his pedestal, the lion looked at the desecrated graves and for the first time in the one hundred and twenty-six years he had watched over the three thousand unmarked souls, the lion cried.