Meeting William Fry: Died on the Ninth of April 1885.

I lie down in the rich grass next to William; six foot and ninety-eight years stretch between my life and his death. We share a common journey to this point, up a steep hill to rest amongst the trees and a crowd of other souls. The hill wares this resting place like a crown; each gravestone a peak around its rim, each soul a gem glinting in the warm sun; as if the hill had been inaugurated into a deathly monarchy; a silent, stationary king of death, looking out in all directions across sea and land, searching for the points where life vanishes. I lay my hand upon the relief that marks where William's remains lie beneath the soil, a hillock of earth upon a hill, a reflection of its surroundings; a mimicry reflection of the life around it. I imagine how his hand would have felt to have held, what his life would have been to have lived. I know nothing of him save the sparse epitaph engraved upon his stone; "In loving memory of William Fry; Died on the 9^th of April 1885. " In the midsts of life we are in death."" I am in the midsts of death, with my hand resting on what is left of the life of William Fry. I begin to feel the cold set in with the fall of the sun over the shifting water; I walk back down the slope; this is my journey, not William Fry's; his journey has just begun.

In Memory of William Fry: Died on the Ninth of April 1885.

From Memory's of Peter Peasey: Born on the Ninth of April 1983.