Harold has learnt what to do - ways to stop the stuff from staining the memorials, what chemicals to use and how to avoid getting the stuff on his hands so it doesn't sting or eat through his heavy gloves. He's seen this all before and every year it's the same. The longest night, the winter solstice, someone goes wild and leaves him with the mess to clear up. He's convinced it's the damn college kids. Why they're not in bed, instead of turning the cemetery downside up in some crazy voodoo party, he'll never know. The broken headstones scattered around in trampled earth, the disturbed graves with empty caskets, the fine crypts daubed with occult symbols, it's all a fucking disgrace.

Straightening up, he leans back on his heels. The tombstone is clean again at last. He's really earned his Christmas bonus this time - his bad knee is killing him and he's going to need a heat pad on it while he gets home. He's too old for this; too old to be cleaning up after children playing at Satanists or somesuch, just because some heavy metal music tells them to worship the devil. He blames the parents, bringing them up without discipline or respect for the dead. He hadn't fought in Europe so that they could dig up their dead classmates for kicks. Youth today is irresponsible and lazy and he thinks they should fight a damn World War to see how they shape up.

He picks up his buckets and moves on. There's another pile of that dust again by the Bryman crypt. It's strange shit, grey and greasy, unlike anything else he's ever seen, and he finds it all over the cemetery some nights. He wouldn't like to guess what it was; probably some sort of drug the kids use to get high. He's heard of that on the news; kids high on Crack tearing up places like his cemetery every night in orgies of hard drugs and petty vandalism. Someone should put a stop to that kind of behaviour, because it ain't right to go disturbing the dead like this.

When Harold coughs it's wheezy and full of phlegm. The dust gets into the lungs like nothing else and he must have years of it in there. He knows this is never going to stop; the police department don't care. The world could come to its end and he doubted they'd ever notice. No surprise the management pays him extra to keep quiet; they just want it all fixed before the relatives of the residents file a lawsuit and put them out of pocket. No, the damn kids will just carry on destroying the place and he'll just keep cleaning up after them all the same.

He's gotta make his check somehow.