His ancestors had left him with the great task with a great pile of tools, so he would not die on the spot from the large tasks he had to do: a handful of different sized sickles and plows— for the 'earth’s care'—hammers and nails for the iron gate and the barbed fence that surrounded the graveyard behind a layer of steel pike rods, shovels, traditional oil candle lanterns, medium and large sized gloves for the tightening of his daily work, timber logs and worn but sharp axes, bundles of asparagus and tomato seeds for his own nutrition and finally, a small but respectable lodge he would soon garnish with plenty of intricate decorations on both exterior and interior designs. The owner of At a glance, Carthwells County’s flower shop, which adorned wooded calves and small cat pusses on each side of its red brick wailed wall, seldom sold out its flower stocks—its clandestine clients got intrigued by the shop’s neighbor, Gary, who naturally turned mowing grass and carving bushes into the close resemblance of passionate Picasso brushes or intense 21^st century donkey and beef slaughter fabricate. Smirks from senile old folks, frowns from both widows and orphans and animated mugs from children filled Carthwells County with life each day.

Another interesting fact is that Gary himself—and his tools—built pride over the long years of sowing ruined earth, cutting sunflowers and wildgrass growing on unfortunate gravestones—pocketing a few extra dimes on the process—or digging profound macabre tombs. But no soul dared confront his law in Carthwells since he took the relay from Patrick Junior, the last Grave Digger. (Hell yeah I did) This custom had its roots well founded, nevertheless.

The legend tells of Wendels, Carthwells’s smith a couple of decades earlier, who once went to the graveyard to visit his grandmother’s grave with his wife and children. Little did the family know that the grave keeper in that year, Patrick the First, was a crazy motherfucker, and he had mowed the grass the very morning of their visit and that it was “forbidden" to stump beyond the sidewalk disposed in front of each row of tombstones.

As the family peacefully strolled down the grass surrounding their kin’s tomb, Wendels the smith—an asshole for most people—suddenly heard a loud shout coming from behind the brushes conveying the alley of tombstones followed by an unearthly crumble. His first thought was that the grave digger had gone mad, and decided to kill him and his family in the very place of their soon-to-be burial. Wendels unsheathed his dagger that was scantily belted to his leather tunic and proceeded to shout indecently at his still unknown oppressor : Silence, not silence, then fell in the graveyard.

Lily and Cairn, the smith’s breed, slowly backed toward the exit with daunted faces, gladly leaving their parents in dismay of the danger at their place.

Then nothing. (o mommy please please save me) Clouds were grey and the sun was no more. Claude, Wendels wife, let out a quick gasp and firmly held the arm of his chicken wuss sucker of a husband, who was terrified to his bones. After five minutes of awkward silence and fear, a creepy shadow moved behind to between the tombstones front of the sidewalk. A crumpled old man armed with a pick and a shovel in each of his hands stood, wearily breathing—Wendels immediately let loose his weapon by the sight—and screamed, “Ghostly ghos—” He hardly guttered the end of his words, for he was probably no more. No one really knows, but that's okay.

After that incident, Wendels, Claude, Lily and Cairn were never retrieved.

The murmurs of such tales kept balmy youth or daft people away from the Iron Gate, and thus from the Grave Digger. Gary made short notice of the village’s prominent inspector in law, Cree, whichever he bore no attention at all on each Tuesday and Sunday usual town meetings. Cree’s suspicions on Gary were broad daylight known. Cree would say, “Ain’t there n’one in Carthwells’who would shun the ol’ Grave Digger wit’out flinchin’ a straw,” and then,”no’one ‘cept me, good and brave inspector of Carthwells miserable town.” He was right. If scared was not the word to describe best Carthwells constituency’s citizen, terrified would be. The Grave Digger had authority, and a large, strong one at that.

(a scary guy he was, yes)