Digging a Hole Where's the sun? I can't see the sun. I should be able to see the sun. It's too hot to not be able to see it. How can it be so hot when it's so cloudy? The shovel feels funny in my hands. How many times have I used a shovel in my life? It's a tool, it's a means to an end. The goal I have finds existence through my shovel, therefore the shovel feels funny because of the readiness, the willingness it has to provide this existence. It feels funny because the existence is funny. Funny's not the word I'm looking for. "Remember..." "Hurry up, I want to get some lunch." "Yes sir," I say. Why do I say that? My mind wanders; I can't help it, I 've always been this way. My mother used to yell up at me in my room when it was time for dinner or when my grandparents had arrived, or some such thing, and I wouldn't hear her. Sometimes I would be so absent-minded that by the time I was paying attention to something important it would be too late. He was too late. That scuffling sound. I woke up and there it was, big and arrogant, yellow teeth and all, powdered blood on its snout, pulling at his nose, pulling so hard it made his head lift from the bunk, then the *thwip* sound as the flesh came free and the *thunk* of his head falling back. He wasn't even stiff yet. The beasts are always alert. To be human is to be absent-minded, to be inhuman is to always be ready, be hard, to survive at the expense of those who are not. The scuffling sound sticks to me like sand in the teeth. My first thought was of my wife turning over in bed next to me, then cock-roaches, then opening my eyes and seeing it, whiskers twitching, grasping the nose. I just watched, I couldn't move. I was immobilized. What's wrong with me? I cough and spit out blood. The soil is hard and tight, a pick-axe would go faster. I want this to go faster for some reason. I have no hair. My teeth feel loose in my gums -- I'm afraid to eat. The bread with pits; I bit down hard and nearly cracked my jaw. The pain of biting something so hard was terrible, but the realization that the pit was a tooth was worse. I felt around my mouth with my tongue and everything was where it should be. Thank God it wasn't mine. Oh God, it wasn't mine. "Extra protein", said one. "There's no protein in teeth", said another. "It isn't mine", I said. There was silence after that. Silence like that can snap a man in two. "Remember, if anything should happen..." The air smells fresh and clean, but a little damp. It smells like spring. Can it really only be spring? I see an earthworm when I lift my shovel and my first thought, God help me, is to eat it. As if I were a bird, or one of those gigantic rodents that prowl among us at night. With my shovel I lift it carefully out of the way, placing it in the pile of fresh earth I'm creating. I wonder if it realizes how lucky it's just been. Do I believe in reincarnation? Could a man die and be reborn as an earthworm? After all this, in spite of everything else I've ever thought or believed, at the moment it somehow seems very plausible. It's like a sort of invisible capital, being shifted around behind the scenes. I don't believe that what we do in this life affects it much though, I think it's random. I think kings are reborn as earthworms and vice-versa. Although I suppose it would take several earthworms to make a king. Or maybe a few earthworms and a tree. Or perhaps when the king dies, he is converted into all the bacteria that decompose him. How poetic. It's a poem that no one can read or hear or appreciate, but it's poetic nonetheless. Goodness or evil, there's nothing poetic or meaningful in that. We do what we do, it impresses no one and gets us no special treatment. There's no such thing as a good coin or a bad coin -- it's worth the same whether or not it shines. Laughter behind me. I dig my shovel in especially deep. I want to get done. My hands will begin to blister by the time I'm done. I wonder... I think of the eyes, looking at me. I'm cold, tired, hungry, frightened. The eyes regard me casually, without anger or hatred or anything like feeling. It's business to those eyes. They scan me, I am an object of vision, I evaporate into his gaze and enter his brain, flying past judgments and memories, over preconceived notions and just under a strong sense of duty, lodging finally in some little temporary chunk of space where I just fit, where the shape of my nose, my thin frame, my full face of hair, meet with a closely defined negative space of bureaucratic rigidity that grabs my features and stretches them effortlessly into caricature. I am ashamed of what I am because all I am are these features. At the moment, nothing else about me is real in the least. I look down. He speaks and points and I look back to his eyes, but he is finished with me and has gone on to the next person. Like an assembly line, a machine. Can it only be a few weeks ago? I feel as though it were ten years ago. "Remember, if anything should happen to me, promise me..." I don't know the man next to me, I've never seen him before. He could be me. No hair, thin, that nose, we all look alike. There's nothing special about any of us. And yet I don't know him. I don't want to know him. It would be redundant to know him because he's just me all over again. We wouldn't talk to one another, we'd whimper like dogs. Is this what it means to have power? To be a man? Must one first separate oneself from something larger? No, that can't be it, they are something larger and they have power. Why am I digging this hole? I look up at the guard, in uniform, top button undone, hat pulled down so far you can't see his eyes, holding the rifle cradled in his arm like a sick child, so gentle one expects a caress. Is it the gun? No, I wouldn't dig a hole for a gun. "What are you looking at?" The guard kicks me in the side and I fall face down into the freshly scarred earth. God it hurts -- I can hardly breathe -- did he break a rib? -- the bastard -- I press my forehead into the ground and arch my back -- I spit dirt out of my mouth -- the filthy bastard -- how can he be human? -- God that hurts -- I still have pebbles in my mouth, and a slime film of soil coats my tongue -- can I really be the same species as that? -- how can he do that to me? -- for looking at him! -- it hurts so much to breathe, I'm afraid I'll cough -- the eyes must be part of the answer -- there must be power in a glance -- who am I kidding? -- I dig this hole because I don't feel I have a right to refuse, and because I'm afraid. I pick myself up from the ground, and I cough twice violently and fall to my knees from the pain and howl out an unintentional cry. "Cut the theatrics, I told you once already to hurry up. Let's just get this crap over with." Weakly, I lift myself up, as if balancing on step ladder, then carefully lean over to pick up my shovel. It helps to move around, the pain is beginning to recede a little, as long as I don't cough again I'll be all right. "Hey. Hey!" Without looking up: "Yes sir?" "Do you forgive me?" He's laughing inside. "Sir?" "You heard me. I'm really sorry I did that." He can barely hold it in now. "Don't worry about it." "I didn't say I was worried, I just asked if you forgive me you stinking son of a bitch!" "Yes sir." "Yes sir yes sir yes sir. Yes sir what?" "Sir?" "You are dumb aren't you? Hey you over there!" The fellow next to me stops working. "Are you listening to this? Have you ever run across anyone so stupid in all your days?" "no sir" he says quietly. "I didn't catch that, speak up fella!" "No sir." "Me either. Now, it's a very simple question and I'll put it to you one more time. Do-you-for-give-me-for-kick-ing-you?" "Yes sir." "Good, now I'll be able to sleep tonight" and he kicks me again in the same place. The other guards laugh. I can't breathe. The squad leader, who's laughing, tells him to knock it off. I can't breathe, I'm afraid to even try. I can feel my eyes filling with water. Please no, not that, I can't let them see me cry, fight it back, I can't wipe my eyes because they'll know then, my hands are so dirty they'll muddy up anything. I have to try and breathe, it hurts so much already. I inhale slightly and lightning pierces my whole right side and I fall to my right and roll face up and cry out again like an animal. He was an animal. I can hear the others still digging. My ear is to the earth and I hear the muffled thuds in a strange staccato rhythm, like a heartbeat gone awry. The earth is dying. My God, the earth is dying. The tears come now, I can't stop them. It hurts so much and the earth is dying right under me, right under me! It hurts to cry but I can't help it, I have no choice, it's too horrible! "Oh knock it off fella. How would you like the little woman to see you like this?" She'd understand, she'd have to, the earth is dying! And it hurts so much. Every time I take in a breath there's a crunching sound in my ribs, like some one eating nuts. Another guard comes over with a bucket of water and scoops out a cup of water. "Hey, come on fella, pull yourself together. Don't give him the satisfaction. Take a drink." I look up into a human face. I spit blood from my mouth. I take a drink, still sniffling, and I make all manner of slurping sounds. The guard grimaces a little, then smiles weakly. "That's better. Now let's just get this over with." "Oh come on Lehninger," yells the squad leader. "That's plenty." "I've got to go." He picks up the bucket of water and the cup and climbs out of the hole. I watch him. Lehninger is his name. Lehninger looks at the other guards who are looking at him. "He's a human being, isn't he?" And Lehninger wipes off the rim of the cup with his shirt tail. I look away and pick up my shovel. "Remember, if anything should happen to me, promise me you'll find..." I focus on the digging and try to block out the pain and the crunching in my chest. I choose where my shovel will go by picking out the brightest stones and digging at them. I smell bad. One of the worst parts about being beaten is that you end up smelling bad, those glands in your armpits really kick in. He smelled bad. I wish I could stop thinking about eating these earthworms. Strange thing about hunger. Once you get past a certain point, you don't feel hungry anymore, but your mind...changes. It starts to view the entire world in more basic terms, edible or inedible. The urges you get are astounding, and only repulsion and nostalgia keep you from following those urges. And repulsion doesn't hold out very long. The nostalgia factor seems to vary randomly from person to person. Some people who were very prominent, rich, important people forget the old ways very quickly, and some people who had nothing will hold out until they starve to death. I remember one man who was an orphan. He came here with me. He had refused to eat anything from the time they took him. Even when they offered us decent food he wouldn't touch it. You could see the battle going on behind his eyes, and many times he would stare at something so hard you'd think it would magically levitate and fly into his mouth of its own accord, but he never ate anything. He got diarrhea and died within two weeks of coming here. "Oh for Christ's sake that's deep enough, we're not digging for coal." Oh my God, this is it. Am I ready for this? Why is it just hitting me now? "On your knees boys. No, stay in the holes. That's right. What, you thought you were digging this hole for some one else? Everyone digs their own hole." Everyone digs their own hole. But it's not true. It's not true! Some people are born in holes! Some people get pushed into holes they didn't even know were there! But I dug this hole. This is my hole. I didn't have to dig it, I could have refused, they couldn't really force me. I could have been brave. He was a coward. "That's right, good boys. Hey Lehninger, why don't we have you do your friend over there." "Yes sir," said Lehninger, and he came to stand over my hole. I looked for the human face. I couldn't find it. "O.K. boys, lets have a nice salute. Come on everybody, don't be shy." "Remember, if anything should happen to me, promise me you'll find another wife to help you raise the children." I didn't keep my promise to her. I only had a week. But I promised her. Do I still have children? But I promised her. I didn't mean to promise her that, I love her, I couldn't abandon her like that, she'll have to understand. How can she? She's dead, she doesn't understand anything anymore... "That's right, now everybody say 'Heil Hitler'." "Oh cut it out, let's just do this and get it over with." "I'm so bored with 'just getting it over with'. Every day is the same old crap. A person needs novelty. Besides, they don't mind. Hey you! Do you mind?" "Yes sir" said a man in a hole. "Yes sir what?" "Yes sir, I do mind." "Oh well aren't you a fucking hero." Machine gun fire, half a dozen quick shots. "All right, fine, business as usual. You know what I'm saying though?" "Sure, I know what you're saying, but you're a professional, you know?" "Professional my ass, I was drafted. I should be home with my wife and kids. The British are going to burn my house down and slaughter my family. All for that crazy paper-hanging son of a bitch." "Knock it off down there!" yelled the squad leader. I was listening to them. I could have been using these last few moments to think my own thoughts and yet I got wrapped up in their petty crap. And now I'm spending my thought time worrying about it. Come on Lehninger, show me a human face, I need to look into a human face for this, I'm afraid to die. "Aim...Fire." Echoes...fire...I can't breathe...I can't see...He was a coward...I'm sorry....my mouth is open...there's dirt falling into my mouth, I'm being buried...I must be dead...or I'm being buried alive...I can't breathe...I don't believe in God, even now...What does it mean to be a Jew if you don't believe in God? By Jim Tinklenberg Dedicated to Jamie McCarthy on his 25th birthday September 21st, 1995
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