The Gravedigger

The Gravedigger


It was dusk and the sun was sinking low. The twilight sky was taking over as hues of red, orange and purple slowly danced over the mountainous horizon.
“Well, looks like we’re getting some overtime tonight, George,” Charles said while he leaned on his worn spade, “Lord knows, we could both use it.” George didn’t look up at Charles when he spoke; he was focused on the task at hand.

George’s shovel dug into the soft, crumbly soil some three feet below the ground level.
“I don’t care about the overtime,” George said concentrating on his digging all the while.
“I just wanna get this done and get outta here. I’m beat.”
Charles nodded in agreement and jumped down in the hole with George, digging with his back turned to him.

The changing sky had caused the daylight shadows to disappear. The gravestones they hung onto were now lonely in their neatly organized plots.
“So how did this fella die anyways?” Charles asked.
“I don’t know,” George responded dryly, “they didn’t give me details. They just told me where to dig, that’s it.”
The tedious sound of dirt being excavated resumed after Charles’ question.

George didn’t much like Charles, and it showed when George would occasionally snap at him whenever an obvious question was asked. Other than that, George kept to himself about Charles and didn’t speak poorly of the man. Oh sure, Charles was a great co-worker but George couldn’t picture fraternizing with him outside of work.
“So, whatcha doin’ later?” Charles asked nicely, “I think a few buddies and I are gonna go grab a drink, you want in?”
“Nah. That’s alright. I think I’m just gonna go home and get some sleep for tomorrow. We have a dozen more plots to dig up.”
Charles groaned at the thought of doing this a dozen more times.
“Oh great, I’m sure it’ll be a blast,” Charles said sarcastically, ”you sure you don’t wanna go out to the bar with us? Patty’s gonna be there.”
Charles gave George a nice nudge with a grin.
“No. I said I don’t feel like it,” replied George hastily.

They continued to dig silently, the piles of dirt rising high around the banks of the hole. The hole was just about five feet below the ground level now. There wasn’t much more to dig before the job was done. George stabbed the earth hard launching the shovel full of dirt over his shoulder outside of the hole. Charles was nearly mirroring George’s motions, though not being able to match George’s pace.

George took another stab into the dirt, but his shovel stopped hard and short. A dull ‘chink’ rang out when the shovel penetrated the dirt.
George grumbled, “Stupid rocks. It seems like a big one, Chuck wanna help me with this sucker?”
Charles turned and crouched down along with George and they began pulling the dirt back from the stoppage point. As they cleared away the dirt they did not expect to uncover what lie beneath the soft soil. George’s eyes widened as he cleared the dirt, revealing what appeared to be the top of an old black and brass-lined chest.

Both men were resting on their knees as they dug out the dirt by hand.
Charles looked up at George and said, “George, it’s a chest. Ha ha! Maybe it has some treasure it in.”
“Who knows. Let’s just get it out and see,” George replied as he grabbed his shovel from his knees and started to dig out around the chest.
Charles followed suit and mirrored George in digging around the chest to excavate it.

The chest was about three feet long and two feet wide. Once it was completely free from the soil they wedged their shovels under it on either side and lifted it up out of the ground. It was about three feet tall, the hole now deeper then they had originally planned.
“It doesn’t look to be locked at all, George,” Charles said, “I’ll just go ahead and pull this latch back and it should pop open.”
“Just be careful,” George replied not really knowing why he said to be careful but he had a strange feeling about this. Charles pulled up the latch of the chest and slowly opened the rounded lid.
“Wow,” Charles said with eyes wide in amazement, “It’s beaut-“ when suddenly a bright light flashed and blinded George causing him to pull back a little with eyes closed.

George opened his eyes back up to see that Charles was gone, just disappeared out of nowhere.
“Chuck? Chuck stop fucking around… Chuck?!” George yelled, not knowing what was going on.
He felt a feeling of emptiness sinking in as he stared at the chest. ‘What just happened?’ he thought, ‘did George just get vaporized or something?’ He stood slowly and looked to where Charles had disappeared and saw no sign of foul play, beside the fact that Charles wasn’t anywhere to be found.

George held his head and leaned back against the dirt walls of the empty grave, his eyes staring hard at the chest. He didn’t get a chance to see what was inside the chest before Charles disappeared; he longed to know what was inside it. The curiosity within him grew rampant as he stared long and hard at the chest for what felt like hours, but in actuality were only minutes. He had to know what was inside the chest; there was no way he could let Charles disappear without investigating it himself. Besides, if he went to the authorities they would simply confiscate the chest and the curiosity would eat him alive from the inside out.

After weighing the pros and cons of the matter with much deliberation, he crawled slowly to chest. The final conclusion that George made was that he had nothing to lose, if he did get vaporized it would be quick and painless he thought. He wouldn’t have to go through this miserable life of digging graves day after day, experiencing death every time he woke up in the morning. So there George was, slinking slowly to what very well could be his demise though the mystery of it all kept him excited. He propped himself back on his heels in front of the chest, taking in a deep breath before laying his dirty hands on the rounded lid. His fingers fondled the latch for a few minutes before he could muster up the courage and strength to open it. He hesitated a few moments before finally letting the lid fly back swiftly.

George’s eyes grew large as he looked hypnotized by what was within the chest. He was captivated from the sensation of the image, awestruck by its beauty. Suddenly, his eyes failed him and he felt as if he was blind, the same bright light that had “taken” Charles flashed allover his body and he felt as if the blood was draining right out of him. Within a matter of seconds George was complete within his vessel on the soft dirt and then… he was gone.

Darkness overwhelmed George. All his senses seemed useless; it was as though he was suspended in the ether of the heavens. However, he was aware of himself and could ‘feel’ that he was not dead, but he was not alive either. George was experiencing a feeling a weightless and pristine clarity, nothing he had ever felt before. ‘Am I dead?’ he thought, ‘is this the afterlife? I don’t see any pearly gates or fluffy white clouds, this can’t be the afterlife.’ In a way George was right, it wasn’t the afterlife. George remained in this stasis for what seemed like an eternity but it didn’t last long at all.

George sat up quickly, taking in a huge breath as if he had just escaped from drowning. He coughed a bit and shook his head violently.
“What the fuck is this?!” he yelled out, though not to anyone in particular. “What games are you playing with my soul you bastard!” George shook his fist up above his head at a black sky, neither a cloud nor star in it.
His eyes leveled back down to examine his surroundings, finding it strange that the sky was so clear though not a star could be found. Everything looked very dark and almost whimsical as if out of some sort of science fiction story.

Before him was a long white path, smooth and clear like glass. On either side of the path stood what appeared to be a tree-like pattern of shapes on smooth planes of blue. However, these shapes were not like trees at all, they were smooth and rounded about six-feet in diameter and no branches sprouted from them. They were scattered neatly about, each one an even and uniform distance from the other. They were also quite tall, stretching high in the air nearly reaching the black “ceiling” over head.

George was sitting on the white path, legs stretched out before him. He knocked on the white ground curiously to find it was hard as rock, yet made no knocking sound. ‘Where the fuck am I?’ George thought. A reply came not more than a moment after he thought this, ‘The graveyard, you fool.’ George looked around to find out where the reply came, but there was no one, it was merely a figment of his imagination or so he thought.

After he took in his strange and unfamiliar surroundings he came to his feet, brushing himself off even though all the dirt and grime that was once there had disappeared. Once on his feet he started to wander down the trail aimlessly, not knowing where he was or where he was going. He wanted to find a phone and call someone, but who would he call? Should he, or could he call the cops? Besides that, he was a loner. The few friends he had moved away some time ago leaving him without thinking twice about it.

While moving along the white path he passed endless rows of the giant “trees”, it seemed strangely familiar to him. Then he heard the voice again, ‘They’re what you call graves, George.’
“Huh…? What…? Who are you? And how do you know my name? Show yourself! Where the fuck am I?!”
George spun around quickly, trying to find the owner of the strange voice in his head. ‘All your questions will be answered soon enough. Patience… is a virtue,’ the voice rang in his head though it was sort of soothing and had a wise, aged tone to it. George sighed and kept walking forward, to where he did not know.

Roughly a half an hour had past since he’d started walking down the smooth white path and nothing had changed. He was still passing rows upon rows of the strange graves; thoughts about what his future holds rattled his mind. At that moment of despair and uncertainty George caught a glimpse of something he’d been waiting for, a figure was walking toward him along that white path. The figure seemed to emerge from the black nothingness that lay at the end of the path. George’s pace quickened, wanting desperately for someone to give him some answers.

George stopped abruptly when the figure got close, his eyes filled with terror and shock. He was looking hard at the figure before him, he was looking at himself. It was a mirror image of him; it even mimicked his motions and the expressions on his face.
“What the-“ George stopped talking as soon as he heard the clone echoing his every word.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” George screamed with out stretched arms, looking toward the black sky with eyes closed tightly.
The clone did the same, not missing any detail. Then George slumped to his knees and began to weep uncontrollably, the clone however remained standing. It took a step closer to George and laid a hand on his head, the hand feeling cold and inhuman, “Easy now, Georgie boy. I was only playing.” It was the same voice as before only coming out of his mouth, rather his clone’s mouth.

“Why are you doing this to me?! What is all this?! What in the hell is going on here?!” George screamed up at his mirror image while it looked down on him. “It’s your own fault you’re here, George,” the clone said, “You’re the one who opened the chest. You’re the one who brought this upon yourself, no one is doing anything that you haven’t done your own self.” Though the voice of reason seemed to come from the clone, there was still some contempt in its tone. George suddenly picked up on the fact that this clone might not like the fact that he was there.

“Please, can you just tell me where I am?” George pleaded.
“Let's just say your in another dimension. And this is what you would call our graveyard,” the clone said.
George suddenly had a revelation within his fragile mind. He stopped weeping and wiped his eyes clear, then stood on his feet to face the clone of himself with some added confidence from gaining a little self-confidence about the situation.
Taking one good look around him he took into account everything different about this graveyard from the one he had been working in for nearly a decade now, “So this is some kind of a parallel universe, is that it?”
George wasn’t a complete fool. Though he may be working a dead-end job with no real future besides digging graves, he was not entirely uneducated or unread just unfortunate.
“Yeah yeah, I’ve read books about this kind of stuff. Someone finds some kind of portal – the chest. They get sucked into it and end up in a parallel world that is like a reversed mirror image of the original world,” George stopped to think for a minute his eyes filling with excitement, “so I guess that you would make you an alien!”
George paused to think before he went on, “But then why do you look like me? How are you doing that? Why don’t you let me see your true form?”

The clone smirked like George would, “Well, if I was in my true form you wouldn’t be able to see me at all. You see the properties and laws that your world knows, such as, electromagnetic fields, gravity, friction, are not consistent or uniform to all aspects of our world. We do not have the same eyes, ears, mouths, hands, or nose as you humans have. In fact we don’t have anything like that at all. I only assume this form because that is the only way you could acknowledge my presence.

"Of course, the ground you stand on and the graves you see are all 'real' to you. But that is only because that’s what your primitive sensation and perception pick up on. Everything you see is much more vibrant and full of life in my so-called 'eyes'.”

George stood speechless for a moment, his eyes shifting side to side in thought.
“Ok. I think I understand now, but what am I supposed to do now? How can I live in such a world? And how long must I stay here? And when do I get to go home?”

The false, alien George laughed a creepy laugh that seemed to penetrate George’s mind like a hot knife through butter, “You ask many questions. Unfortunately not all of them have answers. Besides, who said anything about you surviving?”
With that, the fear that George had subdued for the time returned with more intensity.
“You mean to kill me then,” George said in a defeated, sensitive tone, “is that what I was brought here for, to die?” The clone grinned wickedly and said, “Think of it this way, if a so-called alien appeared on your world, what would you do to it?” Thoughts of experimentation, bondage, and agony flashed through George’s mind. The painful realization of what was about to happen to him came to fruition just then, and he turned and ran full sprint away from the alien. All he could hear behind him was that laugh, that awful, eerie laugh.

George was breathing heavily, not stopping a moment to look back at his impending doom. Then, just when he thought he might be safe enough from danger to stop for just a moment to catch his breath… he was gone again. He reappeared in what his eyes thought resembled a cell, the color red surrounded him. He was in a rounded room with no edges whatsoever, save for four small holes on each extreme of the sphere.
George let out another agonizing scream, “Ahhhhhhhh!” breaking down to weep again. ]
Then a familiar voice came through one of the holes,
“George? Is that you?”
“Chuck?”
“Yes! It’s me Charles. Good to hear your voice, how are you holding up?”
“What have we gotten ourselves into? We’re going to die in this place!”
“Relax, Georgie boy. Everything is going to be just fine.”

George had never heard Charles say ‘Georgie boy’ like that before, and he seemed rather oddly calm for someone held prisoner in a parallel universe.
“What’s wrong with you, Charles? You don’t seem yourself in this final hour.”
“Well, that could be that I’m not myself at all. In fact, you aren’t yourself at all either. You see we are their pawns now, to do what they see fit. Do not fight it George, there is no sense in that. It will only end in pain if you fight it.”
With that George had had enough and curled up in a ball, the emotion of the situation ravaging his mind and body.

There was nothing George could do now, trapped in the red sphere of his doom. It was only a matter of time before his end came. Sure enough this was the end for the ill-fated gravedigger and his co-worker. George had reflected long and hard on his life before this incident while within his orbital prison, especially the events that led up to his transport into this world of the unknown. What made him open that chest? Perhaps there was a subconscious greed that sought to find gold or treasure. No matter what it was, there was only one thing that he knew for sure. Although there was still thought and breath in his lungs, George was dead.

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In the end, you ask questions about your own existence and expect to find an answer that will prove that you lived a life worth living. It’s presumed that in being born you already have a place in this world, but that is not always the case. Though you may “live” in what you know to be reality, in retrospect you may have never really lived at all.