I buried you

It must be just a dream. But I saw you at the bottom of a pit. Your pale face turned toward the dark heavens, the white of your eyes wide and pleading. I concentrated on the task. Heavy and constant, I never imagined I would ever be shovelling dirt.

I focussed on the rhythm. The scrape of the metal slicing into the packed earth, the grunt as the heavy load was lifted, the shuffle as my feet swivelled toward the gaping hole, the soft thuds as the clumps of soil hit its soft target, then the mewling moans….like a kitten left out in the cold to die.

Scrape, grunt, shuffle, thud, moan.

Minutes maybe hours passed, the moans became silent now and the earth piled, until all that was left was a mound on one side and a wound where the shovel dug too deep on the other.

Dawn brought patches of warmth and light. Footprints, mine and perhaps also yours, were the only evidence of us ever being there. Carefully I swiped them away, my cold bare feet and the back of the shovel erasing all traces of us. Of you.

I inhaled deeply the damp of the new day, then slowly exhaled. I was free. It was over. And so were you.