A Boy Named David
-by Lisa "HollyAnn" Cotton

It was beautiful, bright mid-October morning.  Melissa, still wrapped in her housecoat,
opened her door to take a deep breath of the autumn air. What a beautiful morning, she 
thought to herself, and with that, she closed the door and bounded over to her bedroom
and dressed herself in a sweatshirt, her jogging pants, and laced up her running shoes.
After she had prepared herself for her daily jog, she flung her curtains open, welcoming
the bright sunshine into her home.  With that, she bound over to her door again, and jumped
off from her patio and began her jog.

The air was cool and crisp, and the sun blazed off of the golden yellow and fiery red leaves
of autumn.  It had rained the night before, and there was the scent of wet leaves in the 
air.  As she jogged by, a neighbour was busy raking up his leaves into a neat pile on his 
lawn and she took the time to wave and greet him.

This is absolutely gorgeous, she thought to herself.  She was new to living in the country,
being a city person all her life.  Here, she was surrounded with nature, friendly people
in this small village, barely any cars came down the road, unless it was of those that lived
on this quiet dirt road, and best of all, there were no screaming children!  Melissa didn't
exactly hate children; she didn't mind them, as long as they kept to themselves or as long
as they weren't screaming without a reason.

Onwards she jogged along, enjoying every last minute of it.  The trees gently swayed along
to the soft breeze, and occasionally sent some golden leaves twisting and tumbling down to
the ground.  A blue jay could be heard from a different tree, and she heard a second and
third one answering the first from a different tree.  Truly, this was a very beautiful 
morning.

About three miles into her jog, Melissa came upon a small local cemetary.  She slowed down
a bit and glanced over at it as she was passing by.  There wasn't that many graves in there,
but some of the stones looked pretty old and worn.  This immediately grabbed her attention.
Melissa loved history, and had been known to strole through a cemetary once or twice; not
that she was "morbid" or any of the sort, but she was simply fasinated by reading the people
on the headstones.

Catching her breath a little bit, she entered the cemetary and began looking over some of 
the tombstones.  To her amazement, there were some here that dated back to the late 1600's.
Looking up into the far corner of the cemetary, she noticed another visitor; a woman dressed
in black was standing in front of a fresh grave, with what looked like to be her seven year 
old son, clinging to her leg comfortingly.

Paying no attention to the other visitors, Melissa went back to reading the headstones.  One
of them that she came across, was dated back in 1695.  Truely amazing, she thought to 
herself as she knelt down and slowly touched the stone.  I fascinated her and even made her
excited, knowing that she was touching a stone that was from a different century, crafted
by hands of the past.  I wonder what tools they used back then, she asked herself, or I 
wonder what the person was like, how it was like living in that era, or I wonder...

"Are you here visiting someone too?"

Startled, Melissa stood up and returned to herself in the present.  Standing next to her, 
was the little boy who accompanied his mother in the far corner of the cemetary.

"Um, no, not really,"  Melissa replied.

"Oh, just going for a jog then, huh?"  The boy looked up at her with bright blue eyes.

"Yeah...Just a little jog...Thought I would come in here to see who was here."

"Ah."

Melissa fiddled with her fingers in hopes that the little boy would go away.  It made her
slightly uncomfortable that he was next to her, especially if the mother discovered that
he had wandered off away from her.  But he stayed next to her, looking somewhat shy, and 
holding his hands behind his back.  Looking back at the headstone, Melissa tried to ignore 
him, in hopes that he would go away on his own.

"My name's David," he said.

She looked back at the little boy, obviously not showing any interest, "Um...That's nice,"
she responded, and went back to reading the stone, not even bothering to introduce herself.

"I'm here with my mom.  I think she's sad."

Clearing her throat, Melissa looked back at little David, "Yes...It looks like she is."  She
was already uncomfortable enough with a child around her, and she was hoping that he didn't
ask her why his mother would be sad.  She couldn't bring it to herself to have to explain
death to a child.

"Do you like guns?"

Shocked at the sudden question, Melissa gave David a sharp glance.  "N-no.  No, I don't. 
Why do you ask?"

David smiled up at her, "That's good.  I don't like guns either.  They scare me."

Nodding softly, now wishing more than ever for little David to return to his mother, she 
turned back to the stone and tried reading more of it...Or at least pretented to read it
to make herself look busy so that David would leave her alone.

"My dad shot me once."

Melissa turned her head sharply towards David, her eyes wide with shock and surprize,
"What?"

"He shot me once," David repeated again, "But it was only once.  He won't do it again."

Feeling a little chill from the autumn breeze, Melissa looked down at David.  He stood
there, still having his hands behind his back and she swayed back and forth slightly, as
if he were a little shy, but simply couldn't stand still.  He smiled at her again.

"L-listen David," Melissa began, a little shaken from the child's honesty, "Maybe you should
head back to your mom...You don't want her worrying about you, thinking that you've 
wandered off somewhere, Ok?"

"Ok," he answered, and on a turn of his heel, he began skipping down row.  Melissa 
immediately went back to looking over the old headstone.  How horrible! she thought, how
could someone shoot their own child?  That is, if in fact, the kid was telling the truth.

"Hey," David called out to her.  Looking over at him and seeing that he had stopped only
a few graves down the row, he had turned around to her, "It was nice talking with you,
Melissa."  And with that, he began skipping along again, heading towards his mother.

Looking back at the headstone, Melissa tried to rememeber where she was before she was
interrupted by the child, when suddenly, her breath ran short.

"How did you know my name?" she called out to David, but before she could finish her
question, the little boy was gone, and there was only the lady in black on the other side 
of the cemetary.

Feeling a chill run down her spine, Melissa began walking over to where the lady was.  
Walking slowly and looking at some of the ages of the tombstones as she did so, until she 
finally approached the fresh grave in which the lady in black stood in front of.  Melissa
took a quick glance at the stone, gasping and placing her hand to her lips, she read: "In
Loving Memory of David Jonathan Colby  1994-2001  Only son of William and Jill Colby."

"Did you know him?"

Feeling her knees grow weak, Melissa knelt down on the ground and looked up at the lady 
in black, still too stunned to answer.

"Did you know my son?" she asked again.

Nodding softly, Melissa looked up at the lady in black.

"Yes...I've talked to him once before."

~End~