Golden.

That was the color of the flowers crushed under the soles of my pitiful looking boots. Golden, like the sun beating down mercilessly against my back.

But unlike the sun I can touch it. I can crush it under my boots and snuff its life out of existence, just like that. Just like all the others living on what may as well be on borrowed time.

No one lives for long.

And I guess the irony of that thought is that it kept me alive. That simple fact puts food on my plate, gives me the clothes on my back and keeps a roof over my head.

All of what I had is simple, and I counted myself blessed with what I had. So minor details like the pain of the harsh rays of the sun beating down my back and roughness of my palms developed over the years of working was thrown to the back of my mind. These did not matter. What mattered is that I get the job done. And I always get my job done.

I didn’t have to like what I did, and I don’t, but it is the only thing I know. It was the only thing I can do. It still is the only thing I can do best.

I still remember the first time I did my work. It was a sloppy job, but I had done my best considering my limited knowledge and the fact that I was barely even able to hold onto the tool that would one day be the only thing that kept me alive.

I was awarded a pat on the head and given an old, little, black book that would be my bible for the years to come. I still have it, stowed in the pocket of my long coat. I will get to its significance later on.

What I’m about to tell you is a story. My story, but not so much about myself but rather of a girl, death, and that little black book.

~~~

My name is…

I am known by a few names, none of them the one I was christened with on the day of my birth.

I mostly go by digger, as the pastors had so kindly bestowed upon me.

Names were not important, and with my craft the chances of introducing one’s self isn’t really that often enough. Sure enough, through time, digger became my name.

I don’t mind, it’s shorter and less severe than grave digger, or even worse, grim reaper.

No one dared call me grim reaper, at least not in front of my face. They think I don’t hear the whispers, but when the only human interaction you have is in between burying the dead and the sullen grave master you learn to keep your ears peeled for any news or gossip.

The last time I’ve ever introduced myself with my birth name was when I was taken from the orphanage. Though I was merely a child, barely reaching my tenth year, the orphanage was beginning to struggle with all the orphaned children being dropped off. Put it simply, there just wasn’t enough resources to feed that many wailing mouths. Being one of the oldest I took up too much space, used up too much resource.

One day an aged man with icy-blue eyes came to fetch me. Despite not wanting to leave the orphanage and all the other children behind I was whisked away to a new home. It was later that day that I met the grave master, smoking away at the entrance of our place. That was the last I’ve properly introduce myself.

It was he who told me that the other man was deaf. It was he who kept me sane in our otherwise silent bunker. Along with the deaf man they taught me how to dig a proper grave, taught me the craft. It was just the three of us.

Then a few years later, the day came that we had to make a private burial. Death had come to fetch one of his loyal employees to take to the next life. Now there’s just the grave master and myself.

It would be just the both of us from then on, until that one fateful day that I met the girl.

White to gray clouds covered the sky, having the promise of rain as it loomed threateningly overhead. Even though I was grateful for the break from having to suffer under the heat of the sun, gloomy weather just didn’t sit well with me. The thought of being caught under the torrent of rain while digging a grave was not an ideal situation. But alas, there was to be a burial. The grave master had given me a piece of paper, as he always does, with the information of the length and width of the coffin scrawled with a barely legible handwriting.

It was a hard one that day.

I’ve dug a lot of graves at that time, all of different sizes, but what I’ve come to know is that the smaller the grave the harder it was to get the dimensions right.  I could have just dug the grave and get it over with, but for the dead and the family they left behind, creating a nearly perfect grave was the least I can do.

I had just finished my work when the tubby pastor came. I wanted to sneer at the additional meat on his bones, but held my thoughts to myself as I stood to the side and waited for the time that I should proceed to the next step. It was never a good idea to bite the hand that fed you.

Small fact on the tubby pastor: He goes by the name father Dubouzet. It’s pronounced Duh-bow-zay. The grave master calls him father Dumbo. Obviously he did not take a liking to the pastor, as proven by the fact that he leaves me to do all of father Dumbo’s burials instead of coming along as he usually does. I’m sure the feeling is mutual as I know from experience that pastor does not have a lot of patience and is temperamental at best.

He peered down at my work, his face scrunching a little bit before he shot me a scowl. I stood my ground, clutching onto the tool of my trade and took calming breaths, breaking my gaze from his annoying fat, red face.

It was then that my eyes took me to the girl. She had a pale, gaunt face, sunken eyes and thin lips. She was a bit taller than father Dumbo, but not by much. Father was a small, pudgy man so he was not the best item for scale, but at the time he was the only one I could compare her to. She was skinny, which I guess with the circumstances was pretty normal. The only abnormality was what was in her arms.

Clutched protectively against her chest was a small bundle wrapped in a dirty blue cloth. And, now that I think about it, at that time, even that was normal. As I said, death was a normal occurrence, no one lived for long.

It was unfortunate, but in the bleak times of famine, sickness and war, people, children, died. I’d say that they were the lucky ones, while they slept in eternal slumber the rest of the world suffered until it was their time to be put to rest.

Maybe I had stared to long, but her dark brown eyes flickered over to me. Her arms wounded around the bundle a little more tightly, as if she was afraid that if she loosened her grip even a little bit I would swoop in and take the bundle away from her at that instant.

Father moved closer to her, laying his pudgy hand over her thin arm, and that broke her intense staring as she switched her focus to him. He held out his stubby arms, the girl shifted back slightly, looking almost as if at any second she would turn and make a run for it. For a split second I thought she would as her eyes held that wild, scarred look to them. Finally, she relinquished her hold, tears falling from her eyes unhindered as she shakily passed the bundle over to father Dubouzet.

Father Dubouzet muttered a prayer under his breath, the unmoving bundle held in front of him, almost like the way he would hold a book. After a few minutes his mutterings lowered to almost a whisper as he came to the end. That was my cue and I moved up to him, laying my shovel beside the empty grave and straightening up to receive the child.

It couldn’t be more than a year old. It fitted nicely against the length of my arm, and yet it felt heavier than a sack of potatoes.

As I was about to lower the child down to the ground I heard her speak.

“Wait.” She said. Cried. She held back a sob.

“Wait.” Her voice was barely above a whisper and was slightly raspy. She moved closer, her arms tight against her chest. “Can.. can I…” Her arms uncoiled, reaching out for the child. I didn’t need to hear the rest of her request and righted myself back up, passing the child back to her at once.

The weight was lifted off my arms, the child back where it should have belonged. The girl held it close to her face, her lips brushing against the flesh peeking out from between the cloth. She was muttering something, her shaky intakes of breath louder than her words.

I ignored the scowl from father directed at me and patiently waited for the girl to finish whatever it was she wanted to say. When she was done she pressed one last kiss against the pale flesh, gently passing the bundle back to me.

Her eyes never left the body, not even after I had lowered it to the ground and began shovelling dirt back to fill the hole. Even after I took my leave she was still staring at the ground.

~~~

I can count the days that I’ve seen this girl with both hands. She became a regular in the cemetery for the following week, visiting the still unmarked grave of the child and lifelessly staring at the ground. The grave master pays her no heed. He cares little for things he deems unimportant.

What the grave master deems important, in no certain order:

1. His shovel.
2. His Tabaco inventory and how long it will last him until he needs to buy more.
3. The body that he is to burry.
4. His apprentice that is me.

There was also that black cat that comes every so often. It never did have a specific schedule, just dropping by from time to time for a few scraps of food and a little petting. By the next day it was gone. Never the less the grave master seemed fond of the cat, and the cat him.

Everything else holds no significance and is promptly discarded as useless information or completely ignored.

“Follow my lead kid and the world would seem less of a sorry excuse for a rock.” He’d say as he took a puff of his rolled up cigar.

Though I respect the grave master I don’t fully agree with the way he leads his life.

I have never seen the grave master with a woman. I would never know if he ever had any romantic connections from before he took me in as his apprentice, he surely didn’t afterwards. At least he was man enough not to take advantage of those newly widowed women still mourning the loss of their husbands from disease or the war. Still, he respected the dead and was careful in his handling. Despite his rough look and poor communication skills with other people he was still, more or less, a gentleman. I respected him for that.

But unlike him, I took it a step further. I can’t say at the time that I understood what the person feels as their family is lowered down to their resting place. As far as I can remember I grew up in an orphanage before the grave master took me under his wing and began my apprenticeship. The familial love was a strange concept. Watching a few of these people grovelling on their knees to whatever deity to bring their loved one’s back brought out nothing more than amusement to me. My job was to dig the grave, put the deceased to rest and cover it up, just as the grave master said. But in my observation of the people around me there are a lot of tears shed and whispered condolences exchanged. So I imitate, the condolence part, not the tears. It was a simple sentence, but the thanks I receive are genuine.

They grieve. Then they move on.

But this girl. This thin, fragile girl was different from the norm.

Observation number 1: There was no one to accompany her in all the times she was there at the cemetery. There was no one with her during the burial either, and just that had sufficiently caught my interest. People are naturally social creatures, even the grave master has me for company, and I him. And yet, this girl had no one beside her. Well, not anymore.

Observation number 2: The defeated look on her face. She looked like all her reasons for living was gone. In conjunction with observation 1, either she had just buried the last of her family or her family lived elsewhere and doesn’t have the finance, time (or let’s face it, interest) to come all the way to pay their respects for the recently departed.

Heart breaking.

That led me to observation number 3: She was ill. Or at least hasn’t been eating properly in a while. Her face seemed a bit more sunken, clothes a little bigger on her than the first day I saw her. I had the image in mind that a little push from the wind would send her tumbling along the path, which was both amusing and worrying.

You may wonder how someone like myself, deprived of the natural socialization that comes with company, know things such as worry. I do. In fact, I feel that I feel too much, compared to the apathetic nature of the grave master.

Case in point, my boss may easily turn a blind eye to the girl, but I just couldn’t.

No one deserved to be alone. And she won’t either. Not if I can help it.

The following day after my resolution I snuck a piece of bread roll in my pocket along with a small chunk of cheese, no bigger than my thumb. As much as I wanted to help I did not want to be caught by the grave master. I wasn’t sure of how bad his temper was as I try my best not to disappoint, I wasn’t about to test it. Not yet.

There was to be a burial, as luck may have it father Dumbo was the presiding pastor. The grave master had grumbled at the order and had promptly passed the messily scribbled note to me. I wasted no time and grabbed my shovel, making sure that I have the bread and cheese securely in my pocket before making my way out of our little hide away.

Our hide away had a small rectangular slab of hollowed concrete that acted as the entrance. It may or may not have been a bunker before the grave master and his previous partner tuned it into the little abode as the entrance led to a flight of stairs that went underground to a wider space that was turned to look like a little room. There wasn’t much, three beds shoved to the length of the furthest wall, a small, rickety, old table and two accompanying stools and a fire pit close to the stairs. It certainly wasn’t as luxurious as the building the pastors resided in, but this was home to me and the grave master.

I quickly went to work. I gave the area of the child’s grave a few quick glances whenever I paused to take a short breather, but I kept to the main task as quickly and neatly as I can. Thank God I had the forethought to keep the bread and cheese wrapped in a cloth. Though my pants did not give me much of a hard time it was loose on me so the pockets were open to falling debris.

I hear father Dumbo give a short cough. I shovel out a few more to give it a bit more depth before throwing the shovel out of the ditch first and digging my boots onto a niche I had carved higher off the base. Placing one foot on the opposite wall I gave myself a little boost, my fingers barely hooking onto the edge of the hole I had dug myself into, and lifted myself out with a little difficulty. I had dug a little too deep. Doesn’t matter, the grave is as perfect as I can manage.

I barely catch father Dumbo’s glare from my peripherals when I caught sight of the girl I’ve been waiting for. A shawl was over her head this time around, the long cloth wrapped around her neck to keep them dangling over her shoulder, a little above her . Her head was down cast, eyes staring blankly at the grave. My hand goes over to the bulge in my pocket.

As the pastor began his ritual prayer I kept my eyes on the girl, hoping she wouldn’t decide to leave before I could finish my work. Internally I was hurrying the pastor along, my grip tightening over the shovel. As soon as he was finished I moved over to the body. It was an elderly woman, a rare sight to see. Her thin, grey, wiry hair was pulled into a bun promoting the sunken look of her eyes and cheek. To die of old age was a blessing and a curse.

I grabbed the longer side of the sheet she was laid on, the main man of the house taking his position on the shorter end and we began to lift her up, gradually moving over to the hole. I have never actually seen anyone accidentally fall into an open grave, but what a sight it would be. I thought I would’ve seen it this time around as the young man stumbled and nearly dove in. He rectified his stance, looking away as I began gradually lowering the sheet on my side, easing the body down the ditch, pretending not to have noticed his slip. Once I pulled the sheet back out I began shovelling the dirt back in, controlling my hands as not to look too eager to finish the job, though it was the only thing in my mind by then.

Levelling out the newly filled grave I gave a quick mutter of condolence as I pass by the grieving family, ignoring the pastor as he began herding the small group back to the monastery for whatever purpose. I don’t know if any one of them heard me, but at that point I didn’t care. One hand clutching the shovel, the other consistently brushing against the food in my pocket, I daringly made my way to the girl.

Only to realize one important thing. I did not even know how to approach people. What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t like I should just walk up to her and mutter a condolence, I honestly don’t remember whether I did that before- and if I did what am I supposed to say after? My fingers trace the contour of my pocket. I was already beside her at that point, an offering in hand but no words to pass on.

my lips my mouth opened to speak, the same time her head turned to look at me. My mouth remained half open, but no sound could come out. I closed my mouth, swallowing hard to loosen the tightness around my throat. Stuffing my hand into my pocket my fingers curled around the bread. As I was going to my hand out with the offering I noticed the glazed way her eyes stared, not at me but rather through me. A second later the browns of her eyes rolled to the back of her eyelids and her body became limp. My body instinctively moved closer, letting go of my shovel to stretch out my arm and catch her slumping form. My knees buckled underneath me, not ready from the sudden additional weight and I ended up kneeling on the ground.

For a moment I just sat there, confused. One hand was gripping the opening of my pocket tightly to keep the contents from spilling. The other was curled around the back of the girl, tensing under the weight of the body, keeping the girl from completely lying on the ground.

It wasn’t until I felt the first few droplets of the rain did I snap back to reality. I look down to the pale face, noticing her eyelids twitching and hear the shallow intakes of breath. I released the breath I didn’t know I was holding. She was still alive.

Carefully I got up to kneeling position, shifting my arms around to get a better grip on the limp body. It takes me a while, I never had to carry anything bigger than a child- and the last I carried a live child was back in the orphanage when I helped around with taking care of the young ones. Lowering the dead was one thing, I had the cloth to help distribute and control the weight, carrying a live human was another challenge in itself. With my only knowledge of carrying a person dating back to when I was at the orphanage I decided that imitating that was my best option to get us both out of the rain. Propping one of my knees up between her legs I grabbed both her arms, setting them around my shoulders, placing her head against the space between my neck and shoulder before reaching down to her to get a proper hold on her. Lifting myself up with the added weight was a lot harder than I imagined. By the time I took my first tentative steps forward my hair was already drenched down to the scalp by the steadily increasing rain fall. Every step was slow and calculated. The last thing I want was to fall over and try to get up all over again.

By the time I got back to the freshly dug grave the pastor and the small family were already out of sight. Of course, no sane person would want to be caught under the rain. Except children, but children were children. It was hard to contain all that energy in a small body. It all had to go somewhere.

I heard a small whimper, a light gust of warm air brushing against the skin of my neck. I grit my teeth, feeling a current rushing down my back. It was not ticklish as it was uncomfortable and my muscles relax a little before I continued my journey. Despite the grass becoming a little slippery I managed to climb over the small hill leading to the hide away. I could almost see the grave master’s tall gait leaning against the doorway as he puffed his cigar while staring blankly at the rain. The orange glow of his cigar would light up his gaunt features for a brief moment before a light wisp of smoke would lazily rise from his semi-open mouth.

He was not going to like this.

I was a few steps away when he finally acknowledged my presence. He was stubbing the lit part of the cigar onto the wall of the entrance, mouth open to what I think was to berate my lateness when his eyes narrowed, lips pulling into a tight line.

“I couldn’t leave her like that.” I managed to wheeze out. By then I was greedily gulping the cold air. My nose stung and my lungs protested from the frigidness of the air and the rest of my body was becoming sore from extracting that much energy to haul the wet girl and myself back to shelter. I must look pathetic, and I thought I couldn’t feel any more burdensome as I did.

The grave master looks at us wearily, his big hand coming up to rub the small stubble forming around his jaw line. For a brief moment something about his eyes disturbed me. I couldn’t see it that well from the distance and the rain but it had sent a chill run down my spine and my knees nearly gave way. I was pretty sure it wasn’t from the cold.

“I’ll look after her.” The promise pushed out of my lips, merely a whisper at that point. I felt stupid a second later, treating her as if she was some abandoned cat I picked up on the way back. The grave master still hasn’t taken his eyes off us. His tall, lanky frame seemed almost ominous, blocking the way to shelter. “I… I can’t..” I feel the girl lightly shiver in my arms and heard the shuddering intake of breath before a violent fit of coughing wracked her body. I lean back a little, trying my best to balance the girl and keep my body upright until her coughing subsided.

When I looked up, the grave master was no longer there.