Sunday, March 17, 2013

The Earth

The dirt was brown, but he didn't call it dirt. Earth, he called it. And that was the way he thought about it. Up until the very end. Even as the pains grew in his chest. As he scraped at it, tearing his fingernails backwards, bloody, knowing that if he dug, he would find light. But was he digging in the right direction? Who had brought him here? No time to even think.

The dirt won. It was no contest. He died, filled with it. He consumed it, breathed it deep into his lungs. Choked on it. Died in it. Tasted it's richness. That was years ago and the grass still doesn't grow over that patch. Folks talk about it, but they talk about it the way you talk about something that happened to someone else. In some other town. In a place where people grow up without ever thinking what it would feel like to die like that. Without wondering what kind of person would do that to another human being. Without sampling the earth once or twice to get a taste of mortality.

2 comments:

  1. Dan, this is so dark and haunting, in such a short piece of flash. And yikes, it is probably everyone's nightmare. You go directly for it everytime, don't you, G? ;)

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    Replies
    1. Eh. If you're gonna gamble, I say you go all in. But I'm not a gambling man. ;)

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