The mud slid under the shovel with each heave. Globules of soot and muck were flung atop the blue tarpaulin resting on the immaculate green blades. It was against protocol to be digging a new plot in the rain, but Orchard felt like he deserved the difficulty. Every lift of the shovel was heavier than the last. The night sky blasted into hundreds of sparkling spindles that weaved through the clouds. An illuminated nervous system beamed above. The crashing of electricity echoed from the darkness overhead. A second later and the night resumed its natural equanimity.
His son, Solomon, was always afraid of lightning. Sitting in his bed as tubes ran into his throat and arms and hands, the sky would crash and the rhythmic beeping of the machine would increase. His white Chuck Taylors perched at the end of the bed. The eyes underneath closed lids would dart back and forth. Eyes that had been shut for months. Orchard would take his son’s hand and cradle it as the black above roiled and trembled. He would tell him that it’d all be over soon. He wasn’t sure if he could hear him. The physicians said he could, but the gravedigger figured it was just to comfort him. He also hoped it would all be over soon.
The shovel pierced through the earth. Salt droplets fell from his face onto his hands, causing pockets of his palms to split open from the wooden handle. Tufts of dried dirt scattered across his son’s coffin. The tufts grew to mounds. Above the earth was a man carrying out his last duty as a father. Six feet below was a coffin too small. Inside the box was a boy. Presumed dead. Until bits of sediment and soil sprinkled on his eyes and in his nose. The box then began to pound and rattle. The wooden cocoon constricted his cries as the earth continued to pile. Bits of soot shook atop as his fists pounded underneath. Orchard was finished hoping it would be over soon and ended it himself months ago.
A spear of electricity crawled across the sky. The blast caused his shoulders and hands to jerk upwards and pulled him from his memory. Rain cascaded down his face and he continued digging.
He thrust into the earth once more when he heard the voice. “You shouldn’t be out in the rain,” it said to his right. It was a familiar voice. Probably Carl, his coworker. The shovel pierced the ground next to his foot and he perched his elbow to rest. He turned to tell Carl to call it a night. But Carl wasn’t there. Nobody was. He’d heard the voice clear as night. Didn’t he? Or was it a whisper of the wind? At this hour the graveyard was keen on releasing voices into the night. As his eyes darted across the empty space, he remembered Carl was off duty. The graveyard gates were locked. He was alone. As he always would be.
Noise be damned, Orchard resumed digging. The shovel scooped a thick black lump of wet earth. A dripping hunk splattered atop the growing mound, plopping aloud. In between the splashes of mud came another sound. A stirring of leaves. A twig snapped. He stopped in the middle of a heave. Hunched over and staring inside the hole, a wave of panic washed over him. Like a bolt of lightning, a chill blasted from his neck and branched down to his fingertips. He slowly rose upwards to look at the sound. A tree towering over the graveyard and disappearing into the night above stood before him. Its booming trunk was softly illuminated from the pale glow of the resilient moon.
Nothing was there. Just a tree. A strong gust must have ruffled the leaves in its passing. The sky lit up the ground and tree below. In the flash was a small shape. Two shapes. Something small and pale and something tall and lustrous. The night resumed and the figures fell into black. He stared at the empty space beside the tree. His body frozen, he drove down a few heavy blinks. Nothing was there. Perhaps it was time to lay off the whiskey.
As he pondered his futile sobriety, the sky beamed again. The shapes reappeared next to the tree. This time they didn’t leave. A small boy stood there in a sopping blue gown. The weight of the rain sucked the gown against his emaciated body, outlining his withering figure. Tips of bone protruded beneath the garb. A small row of ribs rose and fell as two meager sacs ballooned below. From under the gown’s left shot out a cadaverous arm as bits of gray flesh dripped away, exposing shriveled bone. Attached to the tiny arm was a gleaming chrome post. Hanging from its top was a silicone pouch filled with black sludge and extruding was a thin tube into the boy’s arm. Pumping him full of this inky fluid.
Orchard remained frozen. The mud rose and coiled around his boots as the rain thickened. A gaunt and sunken face stared back at him. The night blasted down a spike of electricity into the booming bough. Its branches and leaves flashed into a great roaring flame. Orchard watched it sprout and slither towards the sky. His gaze descended the rising blaze. The boy and his post were gone. A giant orange glow brightened the field of concrete slabs around him. He was alone again.
There were no more pauses between lightning and thunder. It was time for Orchard to go. Conditions were becoming worse by the second. The new burial was finished and he could go home. Should go home. He reached for his tools when the sky cracked open again. Ahead of him stood the rotting boy. It materialized with the spark of the sky. His decayed finger pointed down. Down into the new hole Orchard had dug. Six feet into the earth was a familiar looking man lying with lifeless eyes staring at Orchard. A split second later and the mirror in the ground vanished.
He flipped around to scurry out of the grave he dug himself. Orchard scrambled to level ground through slops of sinking mud. His chest heaving up and down with involuntary cries escaping his throat, Orchard climbed to the level of the living. Crouched on the ground with his hands disappearing into the sopping soot, he saw the feet.
Gray and purple skin was draped over lank bones. One toe was hanging askew from sinewy nerve endings and ribbons of torn ligament. A tattered gown covered in mud splotches and frayed fabric hung on its starving body. Orchard slowly rose to his feet along with his ascending gaze. Carrion offal speared into his nose, burning his throat. The rain and thunder seemed to stop emitting sound, but continued its surge; as if the boy muted the world around them. From the raging silence came a soft rasping as the rib cage pierced through the gown. A gurgle sloshing through a swamp of shattered teeth.
Orchard looked at the boy. The rain hid his tears. They didn’t matter. Nothing did. Only the rain. He didn’t want that life for his boy. A life of doctors and nurses, tests and studies, tubes and needles, silence and sorrow. But it wasn’t his life to choose for. His boy told him so. The sky brightened again. In the flash was a perfect boy. Smooth skin untarnished stretched into a smile with bright and pure teeth. The boy from the photos on his walls stood before him for a flash. And then he was gone.
Orchard whirled around, searching for his Solomon. He faced the hole in the ground. Night turned to day one last time. The ground before him was a brilliant vine emerald. The tree leaves were immaculate. Lively branches ended with neon fronds. A pair of white Chuck Taylors sat beside the hole. When the night reclaimed the sky, Orchard was on his back staring at the muddied walls towering around him. The boy stood above him as the muck and mire bubbled over his body.
As the earth took him, Orchard was sorry. But it didn’t matter. Nothing did. Only the rain. And he wasn’t sure if he was pushed or if he stepped in.
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