And Outside The Rain Fell...

Yay! A lazy day. A day when I get to do nothing at all. And in Paris. Taking a well deserved break from our travels; today was the Sabbath. And why not, we deserved it. Replying to infinite mails, catching up with many friends, this was long due.

Noon brought me to why I'm posting up this blog today.

Notre Dame.

A tour of this centre of Paris. Nestled between an island on the River Siene, this cathedral of gigantic proportions always inspired a sense of awe in me. Ever since Victor Hugo wrote that book.

Guided by a volunteer who "also" spoke Anglais (English), the tour was frightfully uninteresting. After being guided by native speakers in other cities so far, this was bound to happen. Well, it was still good. But not the best.

And that again is not the reason why this blog is up.

It's because of this cemetery at Pere Lachaise.

Reaching a few minutes before Paris fell into darkness, this cemetery was grand. The who's who of the dead; this was the place everyone in Paris seemed to love to be in their afterlife.

Spooky. Eerie. Especially in autumn. With little sun. Frightfully cloudy, the cemetery's cobbled paths were neatly carpeted with golden leaves. Tombs that were uniquely grand, many gothic, many baroque. Dazzling marbles and granites. Several of the crypts had house like towers of the exact same floor size, but enormously tall. Few epitaphs. And crowded. Not with people. With the dead.

But i would have let this post pass if this were all to it.

Cause there was more.

PritS and I were the only ones going. No one else seemed interested enough. Suits me, I enjoyed my time with him. I did not feel the need to talk, to make my presence felt with him around. I could walk silently. You can do that with very few. One was he.

Branching off our different ways once into this huge cemetery, I chose to walk the oft walked, cobbled path. The strewn leaves, the pretty tombstones, they fascinated me. I loved it. I walked on, to the very heart of the cemetery. Totally lost, really. I had some directional sense to the way out, but there was quite some time until it would get completely dark. I was good.

And it was then that it happened.

To look back, I still don't have an explanation as to what happened. Or whether it happened at all.

Wandering through the streets in the cemetery, I suddenly stopped. I still do not know why.

I chose to walk in the midst of the graves, which had little more than a few centimeters of distance between each other. Treading carefully, as i did not want to step on the graves themselves, i walked in the heavily soggy and leaved little path. Wandering between many hundreds of graves. Looking around, I suddenly realized I truly was in the middle of rows and rows of the dead.

It was sad. Beautiful. Melancholic. In a wonderful way. In a supernatural way.

As I stood there, watching in silent contentment, a certain grave caught my attention. I still do not know why. I really don't know why this particular grave. It was amongst the simplest of them all. Something I would have just looked over otherwise.

Drawing close, I was surprised. The slab covering the grave was partially open. Curiosity. That mother of all dangers.

I peered in.

I actually peered into an open grave.

And I had the fright of my life.

Roughly 6-7 feet deep. And I was peering in intently from up close. A minute later, all I remember is backing away suddenly. Running away from the graves. On to the nearest cobbled track. It's suddenly so hazy as I write this. Why was I running? Why was my heart pacing?

I saw something move.

Looking back, I have several unanswered questions.
Why was I at that grave in particular? What attracted me there? What did I see in it? Why was I running away even before my mind registered the fact that I was running? Why did I walk briskly all the way back to the entrance? What made my legs carry me away from that grave?

There were too many unanswered questions. Too spectral. Too other-worldly. I still don't know whether it happened at all? Had I fallen asleep somewhere in between? Or did it all happen.

It was almost dark and raining by the time PritS came back.

I was ready for another walk through it. Oscar Wilde was buried in here. I wanted to see his grave.
PritS said another day. Thank god for that. I had had enough for a day.

Still. Did it happen? I can never say.