Andrew Dawes

A rich old fellow walks from his village into a nearby graveyard at sunset and sits upon a bench. Looking at the copper silhouettes of the headstones against a smoky red sky, he astutely observes: "Though he may try again and again, night after night, the devil's fires will never consume those who sleep safely hid beneath-ground." Sure enough, as he rises to leave, the sun's ember glow impotently slips below the horizon, and the grave markers immediately escape the smoldering light, like a household's evening windows all-at-once darkened into secure oblivion. But, as the satisfied fellow turns to go, something catches his attention. He starts, then gasps. A single edifice still burns with reddish lustre. Looking up, he beholds it: Perched high upon a marble mausoleum, caught in the calculating sun's last persisting rays, languishes the weather-scarred shape of a stone cross. Immediately, the man cries out, falls over dead, and the village's six church bells each toll six knells, re-echoed once apiece by the hill upon which the now-dark graveyard stands.