Today Jillian, his bassist, had asked him if he'd been to the gravesite recently. He'd made up some sort of excuse, not wanting her to know that he hadn't been there. She told him that she'd been to visit the grave and had left a bouquet there. That decided it. If Jillian could go to the cemetery, Joshua could go. But he'd brought a bit of liquid courage with him. He looked up, to see if he was getting close. Not yet. But since he hadn't been paying attention, it seemed that he'd somehow gotten off the path. Now that he was looking up, he didn't see the tree root just ahead of his foot. He fell hard to his hands and knees, the bottle flying from his hand. "Oh, crap." It felt like he'd skinned his knee. The bottle, where was the bottle? There. In front of that gravestone. "Howard Johnson. 1928 - 1997. You had bad luck in names, huh? Well, this ain't for you, buddy." Picking up the bottle, he inspected it with the bleary closeness of somebody who really shouldn't be thinking about drinking more but will probably do it anyway. And he did, unscrewing the cap and taking a long swig before heading back to the path, more or less in a straight line.
There it was. He'd half expected it to be gone, like it was something out of a bad dream, but there it was. It looked just like it had when he last saw it. "Of coursh it does, you idiot. It'sh made of rock." The bouquet really was pretty nice, an assortment of flowers including the tigerlilies that Nicole liked so much, but Joshua wasn't quite sure what good it would do Nicole when she was dead already. "Hey babe. I don't get thish whole death thing."
"Am I cracking up? I'm talking to a piece of rock. What an asshole."
Suddenly he realized that tears were streaming down his face. He hadn't expected this, this rush of feeling, like a wave suddenly coming at you unexpectedly when your eyes were full of salt water and you still hadn't gotten your bearings after the last one. It was more than he could stand. For six months he'd been not dealing with Nicole's death, trying to put it out of his head, trying to think about anything else. When that failed he'd resorted to alcohol. He'd at least get to sleep when he had finished a bottle, so he considered that a victory. But now, at the gravesite, he couldn't avoid it. His. Wife. Was. Dead. Gone. Not coming back. Ever.
He buried his face in his hands, sobs wrenching themselves painfully from his gut. "Shit, honey..." he whispered. Suddenly, a gust of wind kicked up, streaming his straggly hair back. Joshua was so surprised he fell backwards, landing on his butt. He looked up just in time to see the leaves on the carefully manicured tree above Nicole's grave turn to glistening smooth metal, like mercury. It somehow flowed upwards, the leaves melding into one another and thickening. A high-pitched multi-toned wailing noise began, like someone scraping a metal rake across a blackboard. The tree grew until it was impossibly tall and Joshua had to crane his head back to see the top. Ripples formed in the middle of the tree, then the sides of it flattened out and formed edges. Square depressions appeared at regular intervals and became transparent. There were people inside the tree. Somehow it had become a huge metal skyscraper.
Turning his head, Joshua found he was surrounded by the weird buildings. Nicole's grave, and about ten others, were incongruously plunked down right in the middle of a small park among the skyscrapers. All Joshua could do was gape at them like a fish out of water. What the heck had just happened? All he could muster was a breathed "holy shit." And as if on cue, the buildings melted, losing all their shape, and became trees again. The graveyard was quiet. Joshua fainted dead away.