The wheels slowly crunched over the long gravel drive. Large and elaborate head stones stood erect as far as the eye could see, like sentinels watching over the dead. Finely-cut slabs of grey marble were carved with words of acclamation for the dearly departed. This final resting place was it seemed, for those deemed worthy in life.

The car drove on.

"We won't have very long Hannah," Zeke said quietly. She hadn't spoken since he had announced their destination. "I'm sorry I sprung this on you, but I only found out a couple of hours ago."

Hannah didn't reply. After falling apart on her first day on the floor of her ensuite bathroom, she had successfully, albeit temporarily, boxed off her grief for Shane, deciding to deal with it later.

"Hannah, I also have something else to tell you, well actually to give you."

Zeke reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a sealed, white envelope. He offered it to Hannah and she looked upon it with disinterest.

"Please read this when you are alone and then destroy it immediately. I haven't read it, I don't know what is in it, but I do know that it is important."

Hannah folded the letter and placed it in her skirt pocket and returned to staring out of the window.

A funeral was in process further along the winding asphalt road. It was a large gathering and the people stood around an open grave, draped in a red fabric. A man in a black suit stood in the centre of the crowd, was officiating. Hannah had never been to a funeral before, the Flawed weren't allowed them, but she had heard about them. The Official would start by reading a carefully composed Eulogy describing the life and qualities of the departed. The family and friends would then provide supporting statements to the person's character. A string quartet would play a selection of music detailed in their last will and testament. During the music, the Official would calculate the final SPR for the person who had died and then announce it to the next of kin at the end of the service. If the SPR was above eighty the immediate family would receive their inheritance and their SPRs would remain intact. However if the SPR fell below eighty, the ownership of the estate and all its contents would transfer back to the government. In some circumstances the family might even have their SPRs reduced. "Perfect in life, perfect in death," was a popular saying in Top-5 circles. Just then the crowd of mourners began to clap indicating a successful SPR outcome.

Hannah looked away from the not so grieving relatives knowing full well that Shane's funeral wouldn't hold such celebration. The car drove through a large rusting gate and they said goodbye to the manicured lawns and tasteful planting. They were now on an uneven track, littered with pot holes which ran straight through the middle of a sloping, over-grown field. After a couple of minutes, they arrived in front of old wooden hut with a veranda. The car pulled up and Hannah could see an old man sat in an even older rocking chair. He was wearing light-blue dungarees and a thick lumberjack shirt beneath.

"Ready?" Zeke asked.

Hannah ignored Zeke and opened the car door, not waiting for the driver to open it for her. She stood looking back up at the track they had travelled on. The Charmed cemetery was no longer visible.

Zeke walked towards the old man. "Hey Arthur, how're you keeping?"

The old man went to reply, but began coughing- a wet hacking cough which left him wheezing and gasping for breath. He took a dirty piece of cloth from his side pocket and spat into it and inspected the product of his lungs. Hannah's stomach turned over and she went to turn away from him, but noticed blood on his lips. The old man felt Hannah staring at him and wiped his mouth.

"Over here," Zeke called for her.

Hannah turned and followed as Zeke went behind the hut and continued to walk down a small footpath.

"Who is Arthur?" Hannah asked as she struggled to keep up. She still had the stupid heels on.

"He is the keeper of the Flawed."

"... and that is?"

"Arthur manages the burials of the Flawed. He's been doing it for over fifty years. Not a single Flawed has died without Arthur knowing about it and recording it".

"Is he a Flawed too?"

"Just! When Arthur was born, almost eighty years ago they didn't have access to the technology we have today. In those days they used a very rudimentary system of measuring a child's height, weight, head circumference, educational ability, physical and mental condition to determine a child's SPR. This was done at the age of ten and not at birth as it is now. It was an imperfect system with countless wrong calculations made and people wrongly classified. Imagine being just ten years old and ripped away from your parents and suddenly told you're not good enough or the other way around?"

"Yeah, just imagine being ripped away from the parents you love dearly because someone says you've been wrongly classified. I mean imagine!" Hannah said bitterly.

Zeke stopped walking and turned to face her.

"I'm sorry Hannah, I didn't mean... I meant to... aw damn, I'm sorry," Zeke spluttered.

Hannah looked off into the distance. So she actually wasn't the first to be wrongly rated then. Strangely this thought gave her a small feeling of comfort. She turned back to Zeke.

"So what do you mean Arthur was only just Flawed?"

"Arthur was born into a Top-5 family. This family had power, influence and a bank balance to see that problems were every quickly erased. When Arthur was evaluated he scored 79.9. His real parents were outraged by the score and quickly bought him an extra 0.1 to remove the shame of having a Flawed child. But as you know being an 80 still isn't the greatest position to be in. So the family put him up for relocation and he was taken in by a family of a similar score. His new family had run the cemetery for generations and Arthur took over after his adopted father retired. On the day his adopted father died he told Arthur the truth about his score and Arthur from that point on dealt only with the Flawed. He once told me he did this because he felt like he had betrayed them and that his life had only been made easier by the wealth of his real family. The thought disgusted him. So for the rest of his life he has worked burying the Flawed."

"I didn't think the Flawed had burials?" she asked.

"Officially they don't, but Arthur has his own ways of doing things. Zeke stopped. "We're here."

In front of them was a large square ditch cut into the ground. Hannah knew what is was and fear gripped at her stomach and robbed her lungs of air.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"Yes. When a Flawed dies, their body is kept in storage until a certain number is reached and they are then buried together in a mass grave. The council deems it to be the most economical way of disposing of the bodies."

Hannah closed her eyes and shook her head. So this was it for Shane. Buried with a bunch of strangers, in a rotten field, with no ceremony, no acknowledgement of a life once lived; all to save money. How low could this world that she had only just joined stoop!

"If they have such little regard for the bodies why don't they just burn them?" she questioned.

"Hannah, they won't cremate them as they believe that to do so would spread pollutants into the atmosphere. They don't want to run the risk of inhaling the ashes of a Flawed!

Hannah looked at Zeke incredulous. Anger was quickly turning to rage, like a smouldering ember threatening to ignite and burn hard in her soul.

"Shane's body was buried here this morning along with others. I thought you might like to come..."

Hannah didn't let him finish the conversation; she gestured to him to stop talking and slowly started to walk towards the grave. The ground was rocky and uneven causing her to stumble again. She winced at the sharp pain and bent over to rub her twisted ankle, cursing at how inappropriate her footwear was, she removed the shoes and she hurled them as fast and as far as she could. They satisfactorily landed out of sight behind some bushes. The cold of the ground seeped into her feet and the surface was hard, yet for the first time that day she felt comfortable.

Hannah walked to the edge of the grave. She looked down at the compacted earth, distracted by thoughts of how many people were buried beneath her bare feet. She had hoped she would be able make a connection to Shane but all she felt was numb and empty. Frustrated and guilty, she looked up at the sky, wishing it would rain. The day was too bright and sunny for a funeral. Shading her eyes with her hand, spied a swallow in flight, its curved form cutting through the blue as it glided ever higher. Hannah was surprised to see the bird; Shane had told her that swallows always migrated for the winter in search of warmer climes. She smiled to herself at the memory. Shane had loved the natural world. He could recognise a bird from hearing only its song, he knew how to track badgers by lining the ground with a thin layer of sand to capture their footprints when they waddled over the top. Breaking many a curfew, Shane had sat in a makeshift hide, downwind of the sett waiting for one to appear. He was also just as interested in the flora as the fauna. He could easily identify small plants and knew what was edible and what wasn't. The memories came rushing back to her thick and fast, feelings which warmed her, made her feel less broken .

Not wanting to lose this connection to the past, to Shane, she sat down. Taking a deep breathe she exhaled slowly, enjoying the scents and sights around her. She moved the palm of her hand slowly moved over the tops of the long grasses, tickling her fingers. Green fields stretched into the distance, their margins lined with tall trees. Small shrubs and bushes grew sporadically here and there and the surface was uneven and rocky in places. The initial shock of leaving the formality of the cemetery into this wild natural place had been jarring, but now she could see it for the beauty it was. This wasn't a contrived space, conforming to a specification, aesthetically designed to appease the most critical eye. This was an untamed, real place- the most perfect place for Shane to be laid to rest.

"I'm so sorry this has happened Shane, if I could back go back to that night and...." Hannah couldn't continue. Tears flooded her cheeks. She had dreaded coming here the minute Zeke told her, but strangely she had found the experience, cathartic

Hannah knew she would probably never return to this beautiful place. She grabbed a handful of the dirt and sprinkled it over the mass grave and said her goodbyes.