Art by Brooklynn Bourdeau

This is a "Tasting," a short-short story inspired by a tea I made at my tea company. This particular one is for the "Gravekeeper," an old-fashioned traditional shu pu-erh. Normally, I suggest ordering a little bag of the tea to drink while reading the story, but this one's discontinued, so just enjoy this very short-short!

She boiled the water, and broke the brick of tea into her pot. Her knife dug into the tightly-packed leaves, breaking off flakes into her basket, and poured the violently bubbling water over them. Not even a minute passed before she took them out of the water, leaving a pot of rich, potent tea.

The earthy smell filled her senses, reminding her of the smell just outside her door: rich, fresh, over-fertilized soil. Guondul watched over a field of graves, and found her home in the dead center of it. She lived in a shack, built ages ago and somehow still both standing and waterproof. She didn’t mind terribly, it wasn’t a bad gig. It was a respected position, Gravekeeper. People brought her food and goods out of respect for her job.

She honestly didn’t know what else she would do with her life. It felt like lifetimes ago Dul has picked the title. Before that, she couldn’t even remember her aspirations. Perhaps to be a painter, a sculptor, something in the arts. None of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was watching over her plot of land and making sure nothing happened to it.

The dead had become a commodity, at this point. So much could be done with bodies. Scientists wanted them for research, the nanoswarm wanted them for free bodies, the looters wanted them for parts, and the priests wanted them for brownie points in their afterlife.

Dul didn’t particularly believe any gods really wanted bodies (save for Cozahlal, she’s weird like that), nor that nano-rezzed bodies were honestly much good, always rotting away. But the priests stole the bodies and presented them to their gods, and got gifts in return regardless. And the nano-swarm gained ground on the mortals every day, so they had to be doing something right.

She didn’t care why these people wanted her bodies; she just knew they couldn’t have them. They were her’s to protect. People would bring their dead to her yard because they knew she could be trusted to keep their souls safe. Her ground was rich with nutrients and spirit worms; the bodies laid to rest in her field would be taken into the earth and spread about the wildlife as the gods intended, both their souls and bodies finding peace in the world.

Scientists tearing them open ensured lost souls that would only serve to add aimless ghosts to the atmosphere, clouding up the already overpopulated sky. The nanoswarm loved the souls, they found them to be a very efficient power source and would eat the soul ‘til nothing remained, leaving nothing to pass into the next generation, effectively taking mortal lives from the future.

The priests? No one knows what the gods do with the bodies sacrificed to them. Do they eat them? Burn them? Make them dance for their enjoyment. No one knows. It’s a gamble that Dul didn’t feel comfortable with. And the looters. Just think of how you would feel if someone took your finger and ran across the world with it. Again, it leads to angry ghosts clogging up our airspace.

Thusly, Dul stood her ground against every invader and would-be thief. She held an arsenal of crossbows, longbows, spears, and traps, but she rarely felt she needed much more than her beloved harvester. When she flew to a looter, her cloak rippling in the breeze, tentacles falling from her face writhing with anger, eyes with burning intensity, and scythe in hand, they had a tendency to run.

This commonly resulted in them hitting a trap, which only meant more fertilizer for her field. Dul didn’t particularly care the motives of a corpse, nor did she hold a grudge. Every looter, scientist, or priest would find a peaceful rest for their body in her field, buried and served to the planet. She liked it that way. No reason to pollute her beloved planet with ghosts just out of spite.

She sipped on her tea and stared out the window absent-mindedly at the field of grass flecked with tall tombstones, the occasional crypt, and the out-of-sight flat stones laid into the ground. She watched over her flock with love, and she couldn’t imagine life any other way.