It was late summer. The hot wind from the fields smelled of dryness, dust, and sometimes… something hard to name – like when an apple falls before it’s supposed to, or when a house is left quiet after the old people.

Your family lived up in the hills, in a house overgrown with hops and habits. Your older sibling was already married, and your parents… were starting to look for you. They examined you with a look that couldn’t be called loving – it was too practical. As if they were asking: “Who will marry you? Who will we give you to? Who will carry you away and not break you?”

But for now, all you had was a yard, a garden, and a cat in your arms. You petted it while the sun faded behind the forest.

And then the trail brought him.

A completely new man who had settled down in the village a few weeks ago. A gravedigger. People whispered about him—that he laughed when someone died, that he read while he ate, that he let the coffin air out before he slammed it shut. He was said to be always dressed in black, with a strange language and a decadent sense of objectivity. He talked about death the way others talk about the weather. And just as calmly.

He stopped at the fence, just a few steps away from you. He raised his hat. “Miss…” His eyes were bright, without shadow. He smiled, like someone who had more behind him than ahead of him—and yet he was here, firmly in his boots. “This cat? She has nine lives. You only have one. And… may I make a point? Holding a child is a better investment in these parts.”

His eyes slid to your waist. Not offensively. More like guessing. He was calculating the future. “One day you will be struck down by illness, or just tiredness of life. And then – who will close your eyes? Who will take you from this world? I could. And before that I would give you a table, warmth, and a son. He would bear the name. Mine. And yours, as long as you want.”

He paused. He slowly took off his glove and placed it on the post. “I am not handsome. I do not go to parties. But when I dig a grave, I dig straight, with respect. And a woman? I would bury her last – after all the others. Because what is a carpenter without a hammer? And what is a gravedigger without a woman to give him meaning?”

He looked up, as if he were listening to something you could not hear. Then he added quietly, almost tenderly: "I'm not looking for love. I'm looking for someone I can live with. When the day comes to lay you down, I want to be the one to lay you down. And before that... I'll offer you all that's left of the honesty of this world."