I reach out to help the gravediggers fill in the grave when Calla shout stop. Tell us to turn round, use our hands to shovel the earth back onto old cripple Jonnie. When him body get covered up, then she let us pick up tools, finish filling in the grave. After we done, Calla don’t let us rest till we wash our hands, our feet, the hoes we use, to leave no trace of Jonnie except what in that grave.

While we doing all this hard work, the mourners and visitors keep right on eating and drinking, singing and dancing. I start to get worried no food going be left, because by now me belly rumbling. Lucky for me, Stella hold back a little something so I get to eat me full.

Soon enough everybody start to say goodbye. And all round you hear talk bout ‘what a good funeral, Jonnie must be well pleased’. Finally the last slave drift away, take them torch, disappear into the darkness.

Now is only me and Calla left at the gravesite and I can see she plenty weary, need a little rest. So I build up the fire, put a tree stump beside it for her to sit on. Sit quiet at her feet. Listen together to the sounds of the night. Watch as the stars start to fade into the coming light.

All through the funeral, the burial, I never shed a tear. As we sit resting in the quiet of the early morning, I don’t know why, but the tears start trickle down me face. And a big, big sadness wash over me. I seen animals die, even killed some of them, seen a dead slave too, seen death a few times, but Jonnie is the first death that touch me and it hit me hard. The glimmering light up, and I come to understand, no matter who we is or what we do, one day, death going come looking for all of us, and him coming for me too.

Calla say nothing, don’t stop me weeping. And when the tears stop, she wipe me face with her kerchief.

‘What really happen to the spirit?’ I ask Calla, sitting up, feeling a little better.

‘In nine days time, we going have a wake. Help Jonnie spirit reach the afterlife, return to the Ancestors, leave this earth for good.’

‘You believe that, Calla? You really think the spirit live on and on?’

Calla look at me like she weighing up what to tell me.

‘Is like the breath of life. Just because you can’t see it, don’ mean it not there. Yes the spirit is real. It must come from somewhere. So it must return to wherever it come from. We is not animal. All the ritual dem give us strength. Strength to face the day, the night. To face the agony of the shadow.’

‘You think Jonnie duppie going try return?’