A very short story for a contest about digging for fossils |
Time is Her Legacy It was her duty, really it was. She sat in the earth, day after day after day, in the dirt and the dust. She had her shovels and her brushes and scrapers and all manners of tools. She dug into dirt, into rock, slowly, agonizingly slowly, uncovering long dead and forgotten things. That was what she did, an archeologist, uncovering the fossilized remains of the creatures that walked before. Humans, mammals, lizards, anything. If it existed at one point in the history of time, it was her duty to uncover it, unearth it, bring it back to light. That was what she did. It was a solitary existence but she had lived it so long. She thought nothing of this day, sitting in a small ditch, heavily excavated already, with a thick brush, flicking the dirt off gently, carefully, slowly. She was uncovering the fossilized remains of a man that had walked the earth 3 thousand years prior. This was her legacy, these moments, the bones and the rocks and the time. This was what she lived for. It was a thrill, truly it was. It was unlike any other experience she would ever have. She cared not for what she missed, what most of the world considers a normal existence because she has this. It's like looking back in time, if only for a moment. If she tries really hard, and sometimes she does, she can imagine she is really there. |