(///games.unrealistic.rice – Highgate Cemetery, London)
It started with the letter. At first Oliver dismissed it as an elaborate hoax. His great-great grandfather Edward Morris had not travelled through time from the 19th century, hand-crafted a beautiful missive with fountain pen on thick, cream paper, stuck a stamp on the envelope, posted it, and then gone back to his own era.
But the more he thought about it, the more intrigued he became, especially when Dominic chided his brother for his scepticism. As he pointed out, the letter contained family details which they knew to be true but which had only been handed down aurally through the generations. He had described in detail the processes he had undertaken to travel through time. And finally he had outlined how they could prove the veracity of what he was saying, as clearly this letter would never be enough.
“That’s all very well,” Oliver retorted. “But nobody is going to let us exhume his body.”
Dominic refused to take no for an answer. The obvious authorities were predictably dismissive but he reasoned that an unorthodox request needed a similar approach. So he started posting snippets of the letter on social media. He got the local newspaper interested. He managed to land a brief radio slot. Television news programmes booked them. A trickle of pressure became a tidal wave as popular opinion demanded that the Morris grave be dug up.
And so it was that Oliver and Dominic found themselves in Highgate Cemetery standing across from a a degraded tombstone, with cameras behind them and diggers ahead, the exhumation about to begin.
“It’s a weird inscription,” Oliver said, remembering that the letter had urged them to pay particular attention to it.
“Pretty hard to read now,” Dominic concurred. But they both broadly agreed that it said: ‘Here Lies Edward Morris. His Games seemed Unrealistic at times, but the truth will prevail’.
“Pretty meaningless,” Oliver concluded. “And those italics don’t help anybody.”
The diggers dug. The brothers spoke to reporters. TV crews scurried around taking various meaningful shots. And after what seemed like an age, a dark brown wooden coffin was brought to the surface and placed gently on the path.
TV channels went live. Everyone else held their breath as the lid was prised open. And Oliver and Dominic advanced with the camera to see what was inside.
They weren’t sure what they were expecting, but the first view was underwhelming. Bones and teeth were still intact, but the sense of a whole skeleton had long since passed. At first there seemed little else to see and reporters were already starting to talk about this revealing nothing special.
“What’s that,” Oliver said.
There were some small metal objects, sitting roughly where the body’s hands would have been.
“He was holding something in the coffin,” Dominic said.
The cemetery staff reached in and delicately took out the objects, handing them to brothers. They turned them over in their hands.
‘They’re small letters,” Oliver said. “What do they mean?” He examined them, turning them over again and again I. R. E C. Irec? Crie?”
“Rice,” Dominic confirmed. “It’s rice. Can’t think of another word.”
They shook their heads. What did it mean? What did it prove? Not much.
Oliver looked at the gravestone again. “The letter said the headstone mattered. Maybe the two words in italics. Games. Unrealistic. And then Rice. No there’s nothing in that. Those three words don’t mean much together.”
Dominic nodded. “Absolutely,” he agreed. “Unless it’s a what3words address of course,” he laughed.
They stared at each other in astonishment and then grabbed for their phones.
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what3stories 