The cemetery caretaker noticed that a grave stayed green even in the extreme cold. At first, he thought he must have been dreaming. In winter, the entire cemetery was covered with snow and ice. The tombstones turned white, the grass disappeared, and the ground became as hard as stone. He had worked here for over thirty years and knew every crack in the graves, every tree along the fence.
Yet this grave never froze.
Engraved on the stone were the words:
«To our beloved son
1999–2025»
Snow lay all around, but not on this grave. The grass beneath the stone remained vividly green, as if the earth underneath were warm. At first, he thought someone was tending the grave daily and simply clearing the snow. He even came earlier than usual, before dawn, to check. No one.
For four mornings in a row, he came in the darkness. Frost lay everywhere, yet this soil remained soft. He tried to convince himself it was a peculiarity of the ground or old pipes, but his unease only grew.
On the fifth morning, he could no longer resist. He took a shovel and approached the green patch. The earth gave way easily, as if it had been recently dug. The deeper he dug, the more he felt he was doing something forbidden.
Less than a meter down, the shovel struck metal. No wood, no stone. Something dense and cold.
He paused, brushed the soil aside with his hands, and realized it was not a coffin. And that’s when it all became truly eerie.
He carefully cleared the earth around the metal box and discovered a thick cable leading to the old fence. The box was warm to the touch despite the frost.
He followed the cable and found that it had been carefully buried and connected to a discreet fuse box behind the chapel. Everything had been done with great care. It was not a secret. It was the grief and stubbornness of a human being.
A few days later, he noticed an old man coming to this grave before dawn. He stayed quiet for a long time, then checked the connections in the fuse box and straightened the grass with his hands, as if afraid it might freeze.
When the caretaker approached, the man said nothing to deny it. He whispered that his son had hated winter and always dreamed of spring.
After his son’s death, the father could not accept that the earth was cold and dead. He had a heating system installed by an electrician and paid for the electricity for years, just to keep the grass green.
The cemetery caretaker said nothing. He simply looked at the snow all around and the green island in the middle of winter.
Sometimes people do strange things, not out of secrecy or deceit, but because they cannot let go. From that day on, he never touched that grave again.
