It's around 2AM when we reach Elvis's grave. We'd left the courtyard with intent, made a beeline for the middle of the cemetery. My cat had followed. She'd tailed me before, but never strayed this far. I watch her dart along the curb. She'll stay close, I figure, drunk on drink and starlight. I had been feeling lonely that day, and no company was unwelcome.

 

Elvis's grave is not a burial site, but a memorial. Elvis's shrine would be a more appropriate title, but less apt, somehow. Shrine evokes imagery of incense and prayer. Grave seems more fitting for a small cave lined with dried-up bibles and underwear.

 

Detritus aside, there is a kind of magick in the aura round the place. Set humbly beside the mauseoleum, amidst a sea of gold filigree and Santa Marias, sits this strange, rocky structure, topped with different kinds of succulents, erected by fuck-knows-who to honour the dead King.

 

The other two splash in the fountain, and I duck inside and heave myself up to sit atop the rock. I am delighted to hear my cat follow, her low purring a comfort in the weirdness of the night. The other two join us, wet-calfed. We sit there, flanked by cacti, gazing at an inky sky. Play music from our phones, pass round a warm beer, smoke and cackle like warlocks. 

 

Soon enough, headlights appear. An engine growls. The sky lightens, then bleaches to cornflower blue. We duck our heads. Curfew is over, at least. We drop down, one by one, exhaustion beginning to seep in, the glitter starting to fade. Several cacti are trampled in our wake. My cat begins to meow. We scuttle out from the cave and stand in the path, agape, watching dawn emerge from behind a thousand headstones.

 

The other two are attempting to convene with a fourth, phone lights deepening the lines round their eyes. The glitter is all but gone for me, and the trills of my cat seem to be growing more frequent and higher in pitch. She is panicking. I scoop her up, announce vaguely to the others that I'm taking her home, and set off confidently in any direction. I have nothing on my person but my ciggies and the animal. A jogger ambles past with a staffy in tow, and the cat springs out of my arms. I stumble after her, grab her again. She clings begrudgingly to my shoulder, ears pricked up, meowing meowing. 

 

I swerve up the path, battling the familiar dysphoria of entering the day without the precious interval of sleep. When I hit the fence I know I've gone the wrong way—the opposite way, even. I can glimpse park through the wrought iron. Desperate, I decide to go out and around. We make it out the gate. The cat, overwhelmed by the hustle of runners and hounds, wriggles from my grasp and shoots back through the fence. I have to jog back to the gate to get in again, and once I make it she’s gone. I trudge about, straining to hear a meow. I go around and around, pacing up and down the concrete, vaguely aware of names and dates. I call for her a couple times. After maybe five minutes of marching I spot a clue. A tiny, fresh turd in the centre of a gravemarker. Hm. Must have been a bad dude, I think.

 

It's 7am when I am dragging my feet to the cafe on the corner. My friends—two equally wired, one rested, fresh—watch me approach like pigeons round a bin.

 

She's gone.

 

I announce, dejected, schlepping towards home. One friend follows me, indignant.

 

What do you mean?

 

I explain the situation. She's only seven months old, a rescue, skittish. I'd lost her months ago, led her half-cut down a dark road in the middle of the night. We'd found her the next day, pacing the courtyard of my old house, frightened. Now I've left her for dead again, for dead amongst the dead. The guilt sits in my sleepless body like a chunk of headstone, haunted.

 

The trio follow me down the sidewalk. One hands me a latte. There's no question—we'll go home, drink our coffee, have a smoke and return. The one who's slept begins elaborating a logistical strategy. Another insists on bringing the catfood as bait. The third suggests going in disguise, an idea which is eventually vetoed (we don’t have enough hats).

 

After a brief interlude (the gang nearly fall asleep, I click my fingers at them) the four of us march off, uncharacteristically early, filled with oatmilk and gusto. We hit the cemetery hard, branching off into groups, whistling, calling, bag-shaking.

 

 

I point out the turd.

 

Must have been a bad dude.

 

I nod.

 

Two of us are on the mausoleum balcony, two in the garden below.

 

Any luck?

 

Nothin'.

 

We agree to go home. She'll probably find her own way, we concede.

 

The day is spent committing to the bender. I attend class at 9am. I give a joint presentation, amidst taking selfies with various props adorning my glasses for the boys in the room next door. It is joyful, hearing their giggles through the brick. Makes going to class fuelled by nought but four shots of espresso bearable. Fun even. 

 

In the afternoon we sit around a bedroom, drinking vodka ribena, doing quizzes and talking each other out of taking naps. We share a single slice of pizza between three. I am dodging thoughts of my lost, scared pet, but the topic is broached once;

 

Friend says,

 

Hey, you know how I took that plant from Elvis's grave.

 

(They had, on a whim, tucked a broken succulent into their tote.)

 

Yeah.

 

Well. Maybe...

 

I gasp.

 

We took something from it...

 

Yeah. So it took something from us.

 

Damn the King, I think. Damn it. I reflect on my decision not to pocket any debris, a habit I'm usually partial to. You don't take from a graveyard. The thought had floated in me like a specter.

 

...

 

In the early evening the bender disperses. One leaves to watch the game. Two are left to our own devices. I shower, get changed. Feed a begrudging companion a hunk of avocado toast. We traipse off to theirs, via a bottle shop in which both of us, we're assured, are micro-aggressed by the owner. We sit in a room and listen to industrial techno as loud as it goes. I leave just before curfew. My comrade already knows where I am headed.

 

Don't get too hectic in the cemetery.

 

I nod, dutiful.

 

And off I march, back to my empty home. I change into all-black, throw a tin of cat-chow and the wilted succulent into a bag and leave again, back to the graveyard, to the scene of the crime. 

 

As soon as I step through the gap in the fence I catch a harrowing glimpse of sobriety. The city lights looming dampen the horror that is walking through a cemetery at night, but still the spirits fill the air, heavy. I take out my phone, beelining for the green blob marked Elvis, vaguely aware in my hazy brain that this is madness. I'm mad.

 

Eventually I make it. Sticking to the script, I reach into my bag for the small, broken plant. I step meekly inside the cave and place it on a free surface. Sorry, I whisper—to Elvis, to myself, to no-one at all.

 

 

 

I am briefly distracted by the makeshift altar's latest offerings before I begin to pull myself together. I need to leave. I need to leave, and never speak of this again. I pivot, take a breath of ghostly air, survey the mausoleum lights—and a familiar trill permeates the heavy. The ghosts catch in my throat. My cat stands on the path, looking up at me. I balk. A dry sob leaves my body as I fumble for the catfood, peeling back the lid and daubing the tarmac with some of it, keenly aware of how this scene must look to our subterranean audience. I can feel their knowing smiles. The cat eats the food, hungry.

 

Flustered, I try to put her in my bag. She is, fairly, not having a bar of it. Hopeful, I begin to walk towards the exit. I breathe a sigh of relief as she follows me obediently, a tiny tortoiseshell labrador, stopping occasionally to hurl herself on the ground in a sprawl. She's tired. I'm tired, too.

 

When we get home she darts inside, resumes her status as housepet. I eat some food and fall into a deep sleep, dreaming of realms where cats with jewels for eyes lead their masters to treasure.