Death finds everyone, everything, really.

It is inescapable, and it is final.

Your death, for instance, is not a question of if, but when, and when it happens.

There is no changing it.

Or is there? Are those the rules of death?

This is a story about life, death's primeval enemy.

It's a story about where life, that precious elixir is found, what it looks and smells like,

and how to find it when all seems lost.

I'm Justin Gerhardt.

Welcome to Holy Ghost Stories. The

The A stand of poplar trees towers over the landscape.

Each trunk tall and straight, the branches crowded with glossy green leaves quivering in the muted wind that blows from the west.

A poplar's leaves are unique, four lobes, rounded, and the top of the leaf snubbed like it's been cut off.

Further down the trunks, the lower branches of these trees hang heavy with strange fruit, arched, skin adorned with intricate designs,

the insides exposed, revealing not seeds, but strings, their harps.

Still further down, at the bottom, a man sits with his back against the trunk,

staring into the water nearby. They call it the key bar. It's still and muddy,

and it is not a river. It's an irrigation channel,

cut like a knife wound into the once dry, desolate landscape,

straight as a bronze blade,

inorganic, unnatural,

and the only source of water

...