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Authors: Derek Deremer
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work.
The station is quiet. Undoubtedly much like the rest of campground: an odd sense of stillness. I throw the transmission into park and kill the engine. As I open the door, I hear the sound of birds chirping in the treetops. What would normally have been a serene string of tweeting was unsettling as it was at odds with the rest of the eeriness of the place. I shake my head to get focused. I need a shovel, and I need to find a place to dig.
Both present themselves immediately. On the side of the station, there is an array of tools hanging from a row of nails embedded in the trailer’s outside wall. Spades, shovels, rakes, hoes, hand tillers, and even a pitchfork are hung in no immediately apparent particular order. Wait...
Alphabetical? I muse, seeing that the cultivator is first and the watering pot is last. I continue, seeing that a compound bow and quiver is just a few nails to the left of the watering pot. An odd thing to just have lying around. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve shot, but you don’t lose something like that very quickly. Archery is more like riding a bike than swinging a golf club. I joined the school's club the past year and was a pretty good shot. I was saving up to by a bow this year. Looks like I will take this one for free.
Again, I need to focus. The place to dig the grave is clear as well. Behind the trailer are two wooden crosses sticking out of the ground. One has a small mound in front of it. The other is at the head of undisturbed soil. A chill shoots through my spine as I consider what it must have felt like for the ranger to lash a cross and hope that it would be over his final resting place.
I make my way into the trailer. The ranger lies on the couch, undisturbed. Only a few flies have found their way into the trailer, and they don’t appear to have decided where they want to land. I stop to observe the situation. Wrapped entirely in the blanket, he is just as easy to lift today as he was last night. I navigate carefully out the front door, around the trailer, and I lay him a few feet away from what will be his grave.
I reposition the ranger beside the cross marked patch of dirt and mark the edges of the grave. After hanging the spade back on the wall and trading it for a long, wide shovel, I come back to study the ground.
“Here goes,” I say, exhaling heavily through the words.
I was right about the sun. A few dozen shovel-fulls in and I feel the unrelenting heat saturating my back. It was unusually hot for this time of year. All those bodies in the streets – the parking garage, I can only imagine the reek that surrounds them now. Again, I am thankful for getting out of the city.
Time and time again, I stand, empty the shovel, and squat back down for another. Time goes by slowly, but eventually I can tell that the sun is no longer rising higher into the sky. At about the same moment, I start to measure the depth by leaning up against the hole's walls. The hole is a bowl at the moment, so soon I can just work on leveling out the bottom. I set down the shovel to look at my hands. They are sore and blistered in a few areas. My arms ache.
I need to know what time it is and give my hands a break; I don't want to get back to the cabin too late in the day. A quarter-turn of the keys in the ignition of the car shows that it’s still only one o’clock. Good; I have plenty of time.
I finish the grave rather quickly now and work through the pain each fling of the shovel delivers. I stand up against the wall to check. It comes right up to my chest. I hoist myself out and lay the ranger’s body next
The station is quiet. Undoubtedly much like the rest of campground: an odd sense of stillness. I throw the transmission into park and kill the engine. As I open the door, I hear the sound of birds chirping in the treetops. What would normally have been a serene string of tweeting was unsettling as it was at odds with the rest of the eeriness of the place. I shake my head to get focused. I need a shovel, and I need to find a place to dig.
Both present themselves immediately. On the side of the station, there is an array of tools hanging from a row of nails embedded in the trailer’s outside wall. Spades, shovels, rakes, hoes, hand tillers, and even a pitchfork are hung in no immediately apparent particular order. Wait...
Alphabetical? I muse, seeing that the cultivator is first and the watering pot is last. I continue, seeing that a compound bow and quiver is just a few nails to the left of the watering pot. An odd thing to just have lying around. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve shot, but you don’t lose something like that very quickly. Archery is more like riding a bike than swinging a golf club. I joined the school's club the past year and was a pretty good shot. I was saving up to by a bow this year. Looks like I will take this one for free.
Again, I need to focus. The place to dig the grave is clear as well. Behind the trailer are two wooden crosses sticking out of the ground. One has a small mound in front of it. The other is at the head of undisturbed soil. A chill shoots through my spine as I consider what it must have felt like for the ranger to lash a cross and hope that it would be over his final resting place.
I make my way into the trailer. The ranger lies on the couch, undisturbed. Only a few flies have found their way into the trailer, and they don’t appear to have decided where they want to land. I stop to observe the situation. Wrapped entirely in the blanket, he is just as easy to lift today as he was last night. I navigate carefully out the front door, around the trailer, and I lay him a few feet away from what will be his grave.
I reposition the ranger beside the cross marked patch of dirt and mark the edges of the grave. After hanging the spade back on the wall and trading it for a long, wide shovel, I come back to study the ground.
“Here goes,” I say, exhaling heavily through the words.
I was right about the sun. A few dozen shovel-fulls in and I feel the unrelenting heat saturating my back. It was unusually hot for this time of year. All those bodies in the streets – the parking garage, I can only imagine the reek that surrounds them now. Again, I am thankful for getting out of the city.
Time and time again, I stand, empty the shovel, and squat back down for another. Time goes by slowly, but eventually I can tell that the sun is no longer rising higher into the sky. At about the same moment, I start to measure the depth by leaning up against the hole's walls. The hole is a bowl at the moment, so soon I can just work on leveling out the bottom. I set down the shovel to look at my hands. They are sore and blistered in a few areas. My arms ache.
I need to know what time it is and give my hands a break; I don't want to get back to the cabin too late in the day. A quarter-turn of the keys in the ignition of the car shows that it’s still only one o’clock. Good; I have plenty of time.
I finish the grave rather quickly now and work through the pain each fling of the shovel delivers. I stand up against the wall to check. It comes right up to my chest. I hoist myself out and lay the ranger’s body next
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