Geraldine Raskens. Born February 1st 1919, died December 28th 1929. Beloved daughter. 10 years old. Wonder what she died from. Were there any plagues or anything in 1929? She was probably a war-baby, too.

There are lots of kids buried at Rookwood. Lots of people in general, really. But there just seems to be more than your normal percentage of young ones. Don't know whether that is bad or good or just a morbid fact de jour that nobody really knows but those few strange and slightly disturbed youths that thought hanging out in a Cemetery was cool.

I'd spent my fair share of time around cemeteries. After going to a club and the prospect of home was too daunting, or when I'd had one too many lines and needed to walk somewhere with no particular aim in mind, or when I was feeling depressed, or when I was happy and wanted to be depressed. Have you ever been to a cemetery? Surprisingly, given my prior reason for spending chunks of my life in one, they're actually not that upsetting. Most of the time, they're just kinda tranquil. There is the constant and slightly eerie feeling of someone watching you, but you get used to that.

The first time I spent any time in a cemetery - it was at this very one, the largest one in Sydney, Rookwood - it was for an 'Open Day'. Some sort of Anniversary, I believe. I had never really felt very comfortable around the places. Gave me itches and shivers and irky feelings where there shouldn't be irky feelings. I went along with some of the aforementioned habitual cemetery-lurkers more as a social event than anything else. We'd gone out the previous night and I have to say it was rather amusing to see a dozen sunglassed, cloaked, white-skinned, coming-down goths standing in the mottled sunlight of a spreading tree in the middle of a superbly lit day. Birds singing, breeze gently blowing, the whole thing. It actually was a really nice day. I doubt they noticed.

We wandered round, following the pre-determined tour route through the French sector and the Italian sector and eventually (after a number of false starts) found ourselves at the Crematorium. This is a smallish, sprawling building consisting of four chapel wings - one to each pole - surrounding the Crematorium itself. The designers had obviously tried to make the whole place look as friendly and inviting as possible, and surrounding the central building was row after row of flower beds and low walls highlighted with neatly-placed memorial plaques. I suppose it was a peaceful sort of place, and I wanted to learn more. 

There were some stalls selling books and souvenirs and, piquing my interest, genealogy. I browsed through them briefly, and then four or five of us proceeded to join the gathering Crematorium tour group. Incidentally, we were to be the first members of the public to be allowed into the actual Crematorium since its opening sometime in the late 19th Century.

Curiously, I stepped inside.

And immediately I wanted out. Like millions of tiny hands were clawing at my skin, through my head and heart and stomach and up my legs and into my hair. Like eyes staring at you, voices yelling and screaming, tears pounding against the worn cement floor, fingernails scratching at your chest. Utterly and overwhelmingly terrifying. But, even more than that, so, so sad. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks and sobs groping at my throat, demanding to be released with the pressure building up inside me. I had never felt anything like it in my life. It was completely uncalled for, unexpected and I had no idea what was going on.

I whispered, choked, to my boyfriend that I had to leave. Now. I walked, fast, from the room - trying not to cause a scene - and ran to the nearest bathroom, locking myself in a cubicle.

I must have stayed there, sitting curled on the toilet seat, for half an hour, sobbing. I don't know what came over me. I was confused at my reaction, but I couldn't seem to make it stop. I tried thinking of something else - my boyfriend, or the book I was reading. But despite myself, the tears kept pouring. I couldn't shake the immense feeling of despair.

Eventually I left the Crematorium altogether, went to sit in the surrounding gardens, and managed to calm myself down somewhat.

I looked at the small grave of Geraldine Raskens and wondered once more what had happened to her. When I was twelve, my best friend, Leijsel, died of a brain tumor. Maybe it was something like that.

With a deep breath, I stood up and brushed grass from the knees of my jeans. The sun was already beginning to paint the sky with it's night-time canvas and my watch was dolefully showing 6.00 pm. Time to go home.

My name is Ciardha Janan. It allegedly means 'Dark Soul' in a combination of languages. I think it's ironic that I turned out to be a goth. My parents just think it's irritating. Bad influences, older men, younger women, vampires, drugs, the 'bad side' of town, black clothes, piercings, the list goes on. They hate it all. They wanted me to grow up a nice North Shore school-girl, go to University, wear pastel, do my hair up girly, get a boyfriend a couple of years my elder, settle down in Mosman or something, have two and a half kids and a dog and be happy with my simple, meaningless existence. I don't quite understand how they could come to this awkward conclusion of my life for me considering the life they made for themselves. My father's business failed when I was about ten and not long after that he got a 'wife on the side' and started a new family. Indonesian woman. Very nice. I don't begrudge her. Nor him, for that matter. They've got two young boys, now. But I'm getting side-tracked. I don't class myself as anything. I prefer to keep far away from those societal boxes that psychologists and talk-show-hosts like to put kids in. But if I had to choose a box, it would be goth. They're a nice bunch of people - minorities generally are, I've found - they accept all kinds, make friends really easily (if you're not caught up in the politics, that is) and have lots of parties. And with a name like Ciardha, I fit right in.

I looked up from my rambling thoughts to see the huge wrought-iron gate that marked the entrance to the cemetery. I groaned. Closed. I glared at my watch accusingly. It had taken a good fifteen minutes to walk back to the gate, and it still happily proclaimed 6.00 pm. I uselessly tapped on the glass and watched as the polished silver hands wiggled aimlessly against it's black face. Useless piece of...

I judged the height of the gate and pondered if it would be possible to climb, but with all the vandalism in recent years (gods, why would someone vandalize a person's resting place?), the security had been upped to a point where climbing over would be nigh on impossible. Not to mention painful.

A night in the cemetery. Could be fun. Who knew what eerie new corners I could find.

I wandered for maybe an hour before I saw it. I'd seen ghosts before. Phantoms, spirits, call it what you will. I don't think they're the souls of the dead. They're too mindless for that. I think they're the energy, the 'shadow', of the empty shell remaining after the soul's departure. I recall an experiment someone once did where they ripped off part of a leaf and then photographed it. It showed, in this particular type of exposure, that there was a 'shadow' of the missing part. A little like some people feel the presence of a phantom limb. In any case, this was not a ghost, or a shadow, or anything of that sort.

It glowed with a slight blue tinge, brighter at the top. It was roughly oval-shaped, and seemed to be two-dimensional. That is, when I walked around it, it expanded and contracted like I was looking at a oddly stretched piece of paper.

At first, I just looked at it. A little afraid, a little curious, and, oddly, kinda blissful. I sat down and stared, my heart beating in syncopation with the subtly-pulsing energy field it put out, until my eyes began to hurt from the light pouring from it. Strangely, though it was intensely bright, the nearby tombstones were hardly visible in the dark. The light was almost... introverted. Like it was drawing energy from the darkness and turning it to an internal light.

I don't know what it was. I'm making all this up. Suffice to say; I'd never seen one before, and I didn't know what it was.

As I mentioned, I was feeling rather happy, sitting there, staring at it, and this, combined with my natural curiosity, encouraged me to take a closer look.

I took one step. Then another. Slowly. Approaching. Apprehensive, yet immensely excited. Adrenaline threatened to burst from my body and shower the grass with anticipation.

A dragon swooped.

Shit!

I took a step back and found myself once more in the somewhat more comforting darkness of Rookwood.

The whatever-it-was wavered momentarily, then returned, but it seemed somewhat more... tentative. Almost like I had scared it. Oddly, this upset me a little. I didn't mean to scare it. I was terrified, myself, but I hadn't meant it any harm. For no good reason I could think of, I started to talk to it.

"Um," I began strongly. "Hi. I'm Ciardha. I don't know what, uh, or who, exactly, you are... but I don't want to, like, hurt you... or anything." I made a face. Like hurt you or anything. Eloquent. For the sake of all things shiny...

"Ok," I continued my monologue. "I'm going to have another go at getting a little closer, okay? But none of that near death experience stuff again. Do we have a deal?"

I could have imagined it, I wouldn't have put it past me in the state I was in, but I think it winked at me.

Deep breath. Right.

The sun exploded around me and I fell for a good few feet before landing with a soft thud on a bed of uncut and startlingly green grass. Screwed up in foetal position, I lay as still as I possibly could, hardly breathing, eyes squeezed shut against the light, and waited. Just to see if anything would happen. You know, the end of the world or something. But it didn't come. So I relaxed just a little, took a slow, deep breath and was mildly surprised at the taste of the air. It was... sweeter, somehow. But not the sickly sweet you sometimes get in the city when there's too many unwashed bodies walking past you. It was natural. It was nature. The air flowed through me, vitalizing every pore of my body, awakening me to the awareness of every hair and every muscle. It was the purest, most fulfilling air I had ever breathed in my life. And that's when I knew Kansas wasn't even on the world map.

I opened my eyes, blinking in the dazzle, and took in the scene. The grass, as I had initially noticed, was brilliantly green; the sky, electric blue, completely devoid of cloud or pollutant. The sun seemed... different. Bigger, or smaller... or something. There were a few trees that I could make out, but none like I'd ever seen before. No roads or buildings or indeed any form of civilized construct in sight. But above all that, quite literally, was the most amazing thing. A dragon.

My brain decided to shut off at that point. I know this because when I looked up and saw that fairytale beast in the sky, my first thought was not Oh wow, a dragon or even I must be dreaming, but Hey, dragons don't come in purple...