A scuttling noise caught his attention and he whipped around, eyes wide and searching the stones around him, squinting into shadows, catching a glimpse of an oversized, wet looking cockroach as it squeezed it’s glistening body between the cracks of a tomb. The man shuddered, taking a deep breath and then leaping into the hole he’d dug, working continuously now, unable to stop himself. It felt like forever, and the sun began to creep over the horizon, the bright orb slowly rising up and shattering the darkness with vivid rays of orange, pink and red. The warbling of magpies resonated through the air, and the screeching of birds filled the trees. He had to work faster.
It wasn’t long before he heard the thump of the shovel hitting wood, and he threw the spade over the edge of the hole, it hit the mound of dirt with a dull plunk. On his hands and knees, he worked furiously to remove soil with his fingers, dirt spilled out of his cupped hands and slid through the cracks of his digits. Eventually the lid of a coffin was exposed, and the man frowned, this confirmed they were buried together. Gradually he pried the wood off the top, the brittle timber cracking and splintering in his hands, shards of needle fine embers slicing into his skin and burying deep into the flesh of his palms. The sun was higher now, exposing the contents within the coffin.
There they were, two skeletons with transparent, tissue paper skin clinging to the faces and limbs in some places, ivory coloured bones poked out beneath the decayed flesh. Embalming had preserved these two lovers relatively well. Their spines were curled slightly, as though they had been buried embracing each other, and the bones of their limbs were intertwined, you could not move one without causing the other skeleton to fall into a mass of bones. Their grinning skulls faced each other, the hollows of their orbital holes locked onto each other’s gaze. The smaller skeleton had a single gold band around its index finger, and a thin chain sat snugly inside of the ribcage of the larger skeleton, intertwined around the vertebras of its neck.
The man sat there, simply admiring the scene before him for a moment. Before reaching into the depths of his back pocket and sliding out his smart
CASSIE MEYER’s RING
out and rubbed the dirt and dry mud off the smooth surface, revealing the names underneath. James Tonkin and Cassie Meyers lay here, resting beneath the six feet of dirt and soil. Wearily he unfolded the spade, and began to set to work, thrusting it into the loose, dry soil before placing his weight onto the blade, driving down and scooping up chunks of dirt before throwing them into a pile onto the side. Perspiration gathered on his forehead and the biceps of his arms bulged as he worked, determined to get this done before the light came over the horizon. He soon found himself knee deep in earth, sinking deeper into the core of the ground below him. Jumping out, he landed onto the top soil, before pulling his sweat soaked shirt over his head and throwing it to the ground. It stuck to his skin, wet and slick, but once he was free, he glanced back at the hole and prepared himself for another crack at this digging, fixing his hair back into a tight bun before doing so.