Sleep alluded me again, so I wandered aimlessly around the streets of my hometown until I heard the wrought iron gate creak. The scraping groan startled me but like so many other times I entered the graveyard. That’s when I noticed the weeping willow swaying, but oddly, there was no wind. I studied random names as I strolled along the dew covered path. Why was a pair of brocade slippers lying beside a tipped wine glass and a briar pipe on a crumbled gravestone? I glanced up at the harvest moon gleaming boldly against the twinkling night sky.  If only the moon could talk. He might know why this one stone is broken when all of the surrounding ones aren’t.  I’m sure I would have noticed it before. I’ve been here many times because so many of my friends are buried in this cemetery. The closing years of our lives are like the end of a masquerade party when everyone tosses their masks aside and then gets laid here. A lone cricket chirped breaking the eerie silence. I knelt closer examining the lovely pattern on the slippers before uprighting the fragile wine glass. A fruity aroma wafted into the air. I spun around, but there was no one there.