Karl Marx Cleans Graffiti off his Grave

He wondered if there was a point to any of it—all the wringing and wiping. There were always more words cracked across the stone. He’d seen it all: a curled mustache on his statue’s upper lip, a swastika beneath his death date, a pink penis tattooed on his statue’s right cheek. One time he’d woken up to the smell of smoke and the fire department. A group of visitors had tried to set fire to his grave.

Each morning, Karl woke up early to clean his grave. He would walk towards the edges of the east side of Highgate Cemetery and turn left a few meters before he’d reached the entrance to access the tool shed. The walls were rust-red and rotting, and Karl knew it was a problem, but he did nothing to fix it. He had better things to do.

Every time he stepped into the tool shed, he had the same thought: what tools do I need? The shed was filled with junk: shovels, hoes, bags of soil, gloves, all surrounding the centerpiece: a dusty lawnmower. Sometimes Karl would sit on the lawnmower and imagine himself drinking a beer with his friends. They’d pop open the tabs and shotgun beers until they were tipsy. Karl would lick the foam off of his lips and his friends would laugh at him, spray him with the rest of their own. But then his friends would morph to shadows, and he’d shake off the thought quickly. He wasn’t lonely. It was always business with Karl. A casual routine. And although he always asked himself what tools he needed each time he entered the tool shed, he would always end up grabbing the same two items: a bucket and a rag.

The journey back to his grave was quiet. Karl didn’t speak to anyone else in the cemetery. No other zombies visited his grave in the mornings. In the orange light, he could see some of the others heading out of the grounds for tea or breakfast. Sometimes he witnessed Leslie Stephen and George Eliot playing rugby. Anytime the diamond-shaped ball was thrown near Karl’s grave, he saw the two hesitate and begin to bicker. It’s your turn to retrieve it, Stephen would spit to Eliot. I got it last time, Eliot would snarl back.

Two Monday mornings ago, Karl had stopped cleaning the graffiti off of his grave to pick up the ball that had landed near his headstone. He gripped it in his hand and launched his arm back, tossing it to the men. It spun through the air, making Karl feel somewhat proud of his throw, although he didn’t know if the ball was actually supposed to spin, or if he was even supposed to throw it. He’d never played rugby. Eliot and Stephen had watched Karl toss them the ball, but when it landed near their feet, they didn’t bend down to pick it up. They didn’t move. Instead, they looked at it like it was a plagued rat, backing away from it slowly. They didn’t even thank Karl.

Maybe they were the ones graffitiing his grave. Bastards. There was a long list of culprits, but Karl had never taken the time to investigate who was actually doing the vandalizing. Sometimes at night he could hear voices, some familiar, some unfamiliar, cackling as they shook their spray paint cans. Karl was used to the shaking sound—like a pebble in a mason jar.

With his bucket filled with water and a wet rag, Karl began to scrub his own headstone. It was fresh enough that it rubbed off easily today, meaning that the culprits must have painted it only hours ago. Karl hadn’t slept at all that night. He’d heard them whispering, hatching their plans. No, paint it on his cheek, he’d heard one of them say.

Karl could have stopped them. He had been awake. He could have easily risen from the ground, stretched, and taken care of the nonsense. But for Karl, cleaning off his grave every morning gave him somewhat of a sense of purpose. It was important to him that his legacy be preserved. Legacy? What legacy? his inner voice sneered. You’re the father of Communism, and you’re letting your grave get a bunch of dicks painted on it? Some strong man you are.

Karl would shake off these thoughts. Maybe his legacy had changed, he told himself. Maybe he wasn’t always meant to be the strong man. Maybe now he was meant to be the janitor-man, the cleaner-man, the keep-quiet-and-mind-your-business-man.

He had moved on to washing off the final bit of graffiti marked on his grave. The criminals had painted over the engraving on his headstone. It was supposed to read, “THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD IN VARIOUS WAYS – THE POINT HOWEVER IS TO CHANGE IT,” but the criminals had painted over most of the letters so that the remainders spelled “ANUS.”

Karl scraped off the last bit with his nails. He rose from his knees and returned his bucket and rag to the tool shed. From this vantage point, he could see most of Highgate and its people, most of them asleep. Still, he could see the few and far awake: Douglas Adams was dusting off his own grave, coloring his arms in with markers he’d been given as an offering. Karl wished someone would place markers on his grave, maybe even pink roses.

As he walked back towards his grave, he saw that his headstone shined from meters away. He could read the engravement clearly: THE PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ONLY INTERPRETED THE WORLD IN VARIOUS WAYS – THE POINT HOWEVER IS TO CHANGE IT.

Karl knew the improvement was temporary. He knew he would wake up the next day and there would be graffiti all over his grave again. As usual, he would clean it. As usual, the morning after the next, his work would be undone. The damage was cyclical. Still, Karl would clean. He would repeat the process over and over, again and again, until one day, he would either tire of the chore or wake to a polished grave. He wondered how many more years he would be living like this, pondering the same question every morning. He wondered if there was a point to any of it.