#chapter day

The air was thick with the fog of water evaporated as it had hit the ground.

I wasn’t looking for it, and I didn’t quite expect to find it, but I did.

It was a small cemetery in a backwoods town on the Connecticut Wine Trail.

As I walked toward it, the monument seemed wholly unremarkable, but as I turned to face it properly, I noticed something strange.

The other markers were erected slightly to it’s side, as if to clear a pathway to this one stone.

I closed the distances and ran my fingers over the chiseled face of granite. 

It was hard to read the words; they were worn and the stone was wet.

What I could make out I read, and it briefly told of a man.

Almost unconsciously, as I traced the letters with a gentle finger, I brushed away some moss at the base of the stone.

In a thick but simple lettering, I could read a phrase.

Standing in the rain, I could not help but to tear up at the thought of this man. This one, single man, who could matter so much to an ever increasing group that would never know the sound of his voice.

-SACRIFICE AND SECRET ZEAL AND TRUTH-

I read it twice more.