"Four Corners Voices": Literary portraits in fiction, poetry, essay

Short Story: “ Death Without Taxes “

By David Feela

Outside the city limits a sign advertised, Gravestones: No City Taxes! I’d driven past the sign for most of the summer, a curiosity welling up from within me. Then one morning I followed the arrows and arrived at a closed gate with a dirt track heading into an old farm property. A plaque beside the gate read, Gravestones Open 1-5. The lettering was painted to appear as if it had been chiseled into stone. Way too early, I had no choice but to turn around and head back into town.

Wind had blown all the dry leaves from the trees by the time I thought to revisit my summer whim. The same sign stood beside the county road, and though I must have driven past it a dozen times since summer, it might as well have been cloaked with invisibilit