there are three bearded men that live in the cemetery. each has a turn twice a week to wear the sheet and scare the mourners, and then each takes a sunday in rotation as this is the best day of all with more visitors than usual. the names of days are not familiar to any of the men: the setting and rising of the sun combined with the frequency of visitors over a significant period of time has determined the arbitrary division of time into manageable portions, thus enabling effective management of the sheet. the word 'week' would have no meaning to their ears.

two of the men sleep during the day behind a tomb belonging to Geoffrey Austin, a man of some importance at the time of his death in 1874: his is the most ostentatious of all the monuments and provides the greatest degree of shade from all sides. whilst Jim and Harry sleep, Bob keeps the day watch and jumps out at people giving them the cold chills. very few people notice during the day now and Bob feels unfulfilled with his role in the triumvirate. secretly he hopes that one day he may get the sheet to himself every sunday out of respect for his lone roaming, but in his heart he knows that the power lies with Jim and Harry and that they could easily share the sheet between themselves and leave him out in the cold. the secret fear of blanket castration remains unspoken. in actual fact, Jim and Harry have no designs upon gaining sole possession of the blanket, but do wish that Bob would sleep during the day too. he is dedicated to a twenty-four hour vigil however, there is no swaying him. sure but steady wins the day for Bob, were he to begin to believe in the concept of reincarnation it would be his desire to return as a tortoise.

Bob screams during the day but no one can hear him, not even Jim and Harry as they are asleep. Bob screams like a cat on a spear and doesn't know why he is screaming. at night he is quiet when Harry and Jim wail like cats on spears.

'these stones raised from the ground are signs we are not yet wise enough to interpret.'

every night, for there is beauty and power in routine, Harry tells the legend of the arrival of the sheet and how it appeared as if from nowhere on that cold and gusty evening. he, Harry, found it gesturing to him, caught up in a tree and was immediately scared witless until he remembered who he was. it was the wind that gave him the idea to cover his body with the sheet to increase the productivity of the three men, watching it undulate in waves. Jim nods at the legend and holds his chin, in awe of Harry's intellectual prowess in having constructed such a fully formed myth. the sheet was sent, of that Harry is certain, sent by the great one, by Geoffrey Austin himself. there is no doubt in Harry's mind that the three men are being watched by the master. Bob tells a different tale and says he doesn't remember a time when the three were not in possession of the sheet. ergo, Harry, Jim and Bob are linked to the sheet, a world without the sheet would be unthinkable. Jim scoffs at this syllogism and prefers the orthodoxy of Harry, that a leader exists in a position of omnipotence. none of the men are right.

at two every afternoon, Jim and Harry wake up in time for the daily burial. men and women dressed in their finest black stand around a hole and cry whilst a man in a black sheet speaks of dust and death. Harry believes there is significance to the burying as sometimes those who once stood around later become the ones surrounded. Jim suspects this is a coincidence and proffers only that this might be some form of entertainment though is unsure who is providing it.

Harry has a set of files that he wears around his waist - bastard files, nail files, grub and root files - and uses these to gradually file away the surface of the gravestones. Jim is conditioned to distribute algae on walls and paths. Bob has a small brush which fades the colour of objects in such a way that it is imperceptible to the human eye trying to monitor the shift of decay.

it is my job to sit and watch the three of them flailing in a marsh of nonsense, for without my presence the men vanish. poof! to where they vanish I am unsure. I believe I am also watched, I have a sense of it, that I am being dreamed. my existence is no doubt also equally ephemeral should the wrong eyes close.

Jim, Harry and Bob have no idea why they wear sheets and jump out at people to give them cold chills. it has always been done.

although mist envelopes the outer walls, Jim suspects that there is a world beyond the cemetery. this supposition was reached on the ground that Geoffrey Austin is not the name of a person he has met. to his mind he has only met a Bob and a Harry. Bob says, 'the question is not 'who is Geoffrey?' but 'what is Geoffrey?' - Geoffrey may just be the name of someone's sheet.' to prove the point, Bob has begun naming the shared sheet joan. Harry fears for Bob's safety giving vent to such unclean ideas. there will be judgement.

Harry's beard is the longest, and this therefore gives him authority in the absence of a more salient factor. Jim remains of the opinion that height should be used to determine the leader, even though Harry is clearly the tallest: this would be fairer he suggests. Harry's beard reaches his belly button and this is more likely to make him the oldest Bob suspects, even though in reality all three have lived in the cemetery for precisely the same period of time. their memories have been dulled by repetition. Harry has no desire to be the leader and shirks all the responsibility Jim and Bob attempt to throw upon his shoulders. Jim and Bob believe that this willingness to delegate and share power makes Harry a truly great authority figure.

the night brings out people's tendency to be frightened:
Harry: people are more scared because they can not see as clearly as during the day: it is the fuzziness of reality which scares them, the transformation of the familiar into the foreboding where the edges are unclear between what is and what is not.
Jim: again, I believe that sensory disassociation is crucial: in the dark, the people hear things but are unable to locate the source visually. it's the notion of what might 'feasibly' be hiding in the shadows, and anything is feasible: the fact that it's me in a sheet is irrelevant.
Bob: for me, it's the daytime scaring that gets them going: people are anticipating being scared in the dark, it's an in-built primeval survival mechanism. what really gets under their skin is when you appear in broad daylight: there's no denying that you're there then. it's my belief that when I jump out during the day, people can't just blame the fact they were drunk, or it was dark, they have to face up to something beyond their preconceptions of reality.

immortality tempted Harry as he felt that he hadn't achieved enough in the short time he'd been given. Jim took up the offer on the grounds that his soul was at stake, and immortality prevented his soul, a very important part of his body, from ever leaving him. Jim always enjoyed bucking the system. Bob signed up as he was drunk at the time and hadn't met anyone else who would be willing to spend eternity with him.

Jim stands on the tallest of stones and looks to the perimeter wall for a sign of a world beyond. he always finds no indication of life. but where do they come from?

during his sporadic moments of sleep during the night, and those he takes during the day without realising, Bob dreams of people living in trees as the ground is too hot to stand on. he sits on the tallest branch of his tree and wails at the others who he sees across in the boughs of other trees. but they only sit and eat their nits, there is no reply or recognition. Bob sweats in summer and winter alike.

'what if I am Geoffrey Austin returned to this world to lead his followers?' Harry ventures one mourning as a procession marches through the graveyard. 'I feel a bond.'
Bob: 'this behaviour is obsessive.'
they both look over at the statue anticipating a sign. the lump of rotten tubed meat buried underneath offers nothing.

Jim has become worried about the amount of time Bob spends looking enviously at his shoes. he has the upbringing however to ensure that his concern is never raised in conversation.

'Geoffrey Austin is a statue, Harry, I painted him this morning'

Harry dreams of stroking big, golden egg-yolk suns.

whilst visitors are sat at the side of their loved one's grave, Bob peers over the top of the stone and tries to cry. he feels an emptiness that can only be filled by exploding. but his eyes are as dry as ash and pour forth nothing. this is his own fault for applying the deterioration paint to his eyes. the mourners are always too distraught to notice Bob's head interfering with the grieving process. and eventually they manage not to bother returning.

the statue of Geoffrey Austin looks upwards hopefully. Harry believes this signifies. on sunny days, he mimics the posture of the saviour and burns his eyes badly searching for the point in the sky that has attracted Geoffrey's attention for so long. he will return to us and rent the veil.

Jim attempted to bury himself one night but found that it had less meaning than he thought.