“The outside was ceasing to be. After some quiet, clumps showered his casket. They bumped against the wood, first loudly and then more and more softly, as the earth thickened above him. Then only a dull thudding of shoveled soil, and then it grew quiet, except for a few choked sounds from above, as if a storm were brewing somewhere far away, and the ground carried the waves of thunder, like a murmur, through the ocean of soil.
And then it was quiet. A grave silence. Not a sound. Nothing.”
And so Ivan has been suitably buried. He wonders what will become of him. During his death, the recurring symbol of a skull has entered his thoughts:
“Now the dry skull grinned at him wryly, the jaws clanking, showing brown tooth-holes. The large, empty eye orbits loomed. The skull grew ever larger, gazing stupidly, bringing forth senseless Nothing.”
Back to his childhood memories of seeking the answers from the skulls of those who died in the bunkers? Is the reality of bones what makes the transition from life to death? Is this the structure that holds the core of the soul?
There are some wonderful twists to the story here, but Ivan has been changed from his experience. Novakovich’s final paragraph leaves us wondering:
“During the day, only brave boys come to the bunker entrance but don’t go farther, and they report that one can often smell fine Cuban-cigar smoke there. And indeed, sometimes, at early dawn, willowy blue smoke comes out of the bunker and floats silkily. And if you strain your ears, you might hear a sorrowful sigh accompanying the smoke, but you can never be sure, because some damned owl nearby tends to hoot around that time from the county’s largest oak.”
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology