There was a plot of land sectioned off from the main cemetery on the northeast corner where people would sometimes bury their deceased pets. For years it had been a sort of pet cemetery. The city tried to fight it, to keep people from using that empty lot in that way but eventually they had to concede victory to the masses and they made it official. Tall brick walls with wrought iron details were put in place and headstones began to appear bearing the names of beloved pets.

Some days were busier than others, but every day you could count on seeing an elderly man, stooped and shuffling with age, wander his way through the rows of buried pets. He never stopped at any one in particular, though he often would pause here and there to read an inscription or two. There were no pets marked in this place that he had known, but still he came day after day. Some of the groundskeepers took notice of him over the years but few ever approached him. He was just an old man who came through every day. More like one of the well-known squirrels or crows that similarly frequented the area.

No one knew that he was the one who had started the tradition of burying deceased pets here. Even he didn’t know that he’d been the first. He’d added more pets over the years until the city took over the lot and he couldn’t afford the burial fees the city charged. These days he was too old to care for a pet anyway so he wasn’t too bothered about it anymore.

It wasn’t all bad, having the city take over the pet cemetery. Unearthed remains were an unfortunately common sight in those days. As more and more people began to bury their pets here, often without any sort of marker, it became quite likely that some previous pet’s remains would be uncovered while digging a new grave. Even without them being dug up, the shallow graves lead to the remains sometimes rising back to the surface all on their own. And then there was the smell. It wasn’t exactly a bad smell, but it was distinct. A sort of wet, moldy smell, like what you might find in an old fridge. Where there used to be mostly bare earth and occasional bones there was now grass, headstones, and maturing trees. Small paths that wound their way through the lot had been added a few years ago as well.

Regardless of the course the man took, he always ended on the same curving path. As best he could tell, it was the section where he’d buried his first pet, a scraggly mutt of a dog. Its name was lost to him, clouded over by time and age. What was remembered was how it had died.

Playing in the street was commonplace all those years ago. He could still remember the noise of the other children shouting as their play turned to terror and pain when the car began to plough through their group. He still could see the fender of the car, seemingly advancing towards him in slow motion. Unstoppable as fate.

He’d shut his eyes, unwilling to watch his death approach, but when the impact came, it was from an unexpected direction. He remembered tumbling and crying out and when he finally came to a stop, lying on his back, he was amazed to find himself unharmed beyond the few bumps and scraped. It wasn’t until he sat up and looked around that he understood. Lying on the road where he had been standing moments before was his family’s dog. It had not survived. There had been other bodies on the road as well but his memory couldn’t fill in those identities. The car itself came to an abrupt end when it swerved belatedly into a tree.

At the time, young as he had been, he hadn’t understood but he had been able to feel gratitude. That was why he’d insisted on burying the dog. After that, it only felt right to bury his subsequent pets there as well.

Eventually, the day came when the old man didn’t walk the pet cemetery paths. The groundskeepers mused over possible reasons for the absence and the topic gave them a few days’ worth of conversation. After a full week passed without the man returning the groundskeepers lost interest in the subject, and after a month they had all mostly forgotten about him.