| General Fiction posted May 17, 2024 |
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What would 'you' do?
Digging Deep
by Wayne Fowler
My neighbor and best friend Bob and I were trying to find the surveyed corner that marked our mutual property line. We didn’t really care where the line was, but we were going to put up a fence in an effort to contain Bob’s dog, and to keep my kids’ baseball things where the dog wouldn’t eat them. And you know the saying, good fences make good neighbors. Or something like that.
I bought my place in 2014. Bob got a great interest-rate deal buying his a few years later. His dog was no problem until this past spring when my kids started playing baseball.
Using a hobby metal detector, we were sure enough that we’d located the buried steel pipe to try digging for it. We figured that a previous owner pounded it into the ground in order to clear it with his lawnmower.
About a foot down we hit something. It wasn’t a pipe, but some sort of bracket looking thing that was attached to a flat, shiny rock. But it didn’t look like a rock. More like some sort of composite, like polished granite.
Just a little more digging, the top of the rock thing was about eight inches wide and twenty-five or thirty inches long. Looking at one another, I said tombstone and he said graveyard at the same time. “You owe me a Coke,” I said.
“That’s not how… but close enough,” he replied.
We knew that we had to keep digging, both praying that our homes were not built on top of a cemetery. Our rivetted-eye exchange had already scoured that unspoken conversation. Mentally we’d agreed that we could not just cover it back up. He took one side, and I the other. The inscription was on his side: Jaas Thrun.
“What kind of name is that?” I asked.
Bob just shook his head. I moved around to help dig on his side in order to expose the entire front.
Jaas Thrun
Too Young He Passed Too Soon
born May 7, 3031
died Feb 30, 3133
We stared at it quite a while. I could tell that he was calculating and recalculating over and over, the same as I. Last January first, became year AD2024, or CE as the secular world insisted. I guess Common Era, even though based on Christ, was more palatable to them than Before Christ and the Year of Our Lord.
“What are we gonna do?” Bob asked.
I traded my shovel for the metal detector and positioned myself at one edge of the stone, figuring that if there were more they would be aligned.
It was.
“Dare we dig?” Bob asked. “I mean it could be a joke. February only has twenty-eight days. And look at that etching. Does that look like a thousand years of wear?”
We both knew that wear might be relative to exposure. And our marker was a foot and more buried.
“If this is nothing… Or if the dates on this one…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. If they were also a thousand years in the future, then what? Or if it was only a couple decades old, what then? Would we lose our yards? Our homes?”
“How could someone be buried in our backyards for twenty or thirty years, or… heck. We have no idea when these… Anyway, how could the future have already happened?”
“Gotta be some kinda joke,” I replied, jumping on my shovel in order to cut the sod. “Let’s get this one exposed. It’ll… I don’t know. I don’t know whether it will confirm or refute that one. But we have to see.”
“At least we know which side to dig,” Bob agreed, grabbing his shovel.
Muulah Thrun
Much Loved Sorely Missed
born Aug 10, 3032
died Aug 9, 3197
“A hundred and sixty-five,” Bob declared, stating the obvious.
“Prob’ly the wife, based on the name and being a year younger than Jaas.”
After another moment’s contemplation, Bob agreed. “Yeah. Ah at the end of a name usually means female.”
“At least here on Earth,” I said., earning Bob’s open-mouth stare.
I just shrugged.
“What now?” Bob asked as we simultaneously spun about, surveying our acre-sized yards. Both our lots were rectangular, two acres each. Behind us, the lots backing up to ours were both owned by elderly couples. The land being nearly flat, we could have seen straight to their back decks but for the foliage. Red tip shrubbery mixed with lilac and a variety of other bushes and small trees stood as an effective privacy barrier.
“Why don’t I get something to use as flags and we try to see what we’re up against. You know, marking out all the graves.”
“You’re not saying we dig them all up? How could we keep it… Are we going to keep it secret? Who has to know about this?”
I thought a minute. “If I don’t go in and say something, Julie or the kids will be out here shortly to see what’s going on with all this digging.”
“Mary’s gone to see her mother, so I’m good over here.”
I nodded. “Look, if I know Mary, her mother and all her sisters will know about this five minutes after she does.”
Bob nodded. “Probably a TikTok video and conference call.” Bob closed his eyes, shaking his head.
As it turned out, we didn’t need the tent stakes. Unless there were more under the neighbors’ bushes, we only had Jaas and Muulah.
“So now what?” Bob asked. “We have to call anybody? Of course we do. But who?”
“Mmmm. Let’s think this out. What if there’s nothing down there? No box. No nothing? We’d cause a lot of headache and grief for nothing.”
“But what if… it’s some other culture that, I don’t know, that buries treasures with the deceased?” Bob countered.
“Or aliens,” I countered back.
"How do you account for the English?" Bob asked.
"Well, we are in New Jersey. And English has been spoken here for what, four hundred years?"
“We’d never even get a peek at ‘em. Or see a dime of any treasure,” Bob said, referring to authorities taking control.
“Tell you what,” I began. “Let’s tarp the headstones, and then do some deep digging.”
Dig Deep writing prompt entry
My neighbor and best friend Bob and I were trying to find the surveyed corner that marked our mutual property line. We didn’t really care where the line was, but we were going to put up a fence in an effort to contain Bob’s dog, and to keep my kids’ baseball things where the dog wouldn’t eat them. And you know the saying, good fences make good neighbors. Or something like that.
I bought my place in 2014. Bob got a great interest-rate deal buying his a few years later. His dog was no problem until this past spring when my kids started playing baseball.
Using a hobby metal detector, we were sure enough that we’d located the buried steel pipe to try digging for it. We figured that a previous owner pounded it into the ground in order to clear it with his lawnmower.
About a foot down we hit something. It wasn’t a pipe, but some sort of bracket looking thing that was attached to a flat, shiny rock. But it didn’t look like a rock. More like some sort of composite, like polished granite.
Just a little more digging, the top of the rock thing was about eight inches wide and twenty-five or thirty inches long. Looking at one another, I said tombstone and he said graveyard at the same time. “You owe me a Coke,” I said.
“That’s not how… but close enough,” he replied.
We knew that we had to keep digging, both praying that our homes were not built on top of a cemetery. Our rivetted-eye exchange had already scoured that unspoken conversation. Mentally we’d agreed that we could not just cover it back up. He took one side, and I the other. The inscription was on his side: Jaas Thrun.
“What kind of name is that?” I asked.
Bob just shook his head. I moved around to help dig on his side in order to expose the entire front.
Jaas Thrun
Too Young He Passed Too Soon
born May 7, 3031
died Feb 30, 3133
We stared at it quite a while. I could tell that he was calculating and recalculating over and over, the same as I. Last January first, became year AD2024, or CE as the secular world insisted. I guess Common Era, even though based on Christ, was more palatable to them than Before Christ and the Year of Our Lord.
“What are we gonna do?” Bob asked.
I traded my shovel for the metal detector and positioned myself at one edge of the stone, figuring that if there were more they would be aligned.
It was.
“Dare we dig?” Bob asked. “I mean it could be a joke. February only has twenty-eight days. And look at that etching. Does that look like a thousand years of wear?”
We both knew that wear might be relative to exposure. And our marker was a foot and more buried.
“If this is nothing… Or if the dates on this one…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. If they were also a thousand years in the future, then what? Or if it was only a couple decades old, what then? Would we lose our yards? Our homes?”
“How could someone be buried in our backyards for twenty or thirty years, or… heck. We have no idea when these… Anyway, how could the future have already happened?”
“Gotta be some kinda joke,” I replied, jumping on my shovel in order to cut the sod. “Let’s get this one exposed. It’ll… I don’t know. I don’t know whether it will confirm or refute that one. But we have to see.”
“At least we know which side to dig,” Bob agreed, grabbing his shovel.
Muulah Thrun
Much Loved Sorely Missed
born Aug 10, 3032
died Aug 9, 3197
“A hundred and sixty-five,” Bob declared, stating the obvious.
“Prob’ly the wife, based on the name and being a year younger than Jaas.”
After another moment’s contemplation, Bob agreed. “Yeah. Ah at the end of a name usually means female.”
“At least here on Earth,” I said., earning Bob’s open-mouth stare.
I just shrugged.
“What now?” Bob asked as we simultaneously spun about, surveying our acre-sized yards. Both our lots were rectangular, two acres each. Behind us, the lots backing up to ours were both owned by elderly couples. The land being nearly flat, we could have seen straight to their back decks but for the foliage. Red tip shrubbery mixed with lilac and a variety of other bushes and small trees stood as an effective privacy barrier.
“Why don’t I get something to use as flags and we try to see what we’re up against. You know, marking out all the graves.”
“You’re not saying we dig them all up? How could we keep it… Are we going to keep it secret? Who has to know about this?”
I thought a minute. “If I don’t go in and say something, Julie or the kids will be out here shortly to see what’s going on with all this digging.”
“Mary’s gone to see her mother, so I’m good over here.”
I nodded. “Look, if I know Mary, her mother and all her sisters will know about this five minutes after she does.”
Bob nodded. “Probably a TikTok video and conference call.” Bob closed his eyes, shaking his head.
As it turned out, we didn’t need the tent stakes. Unless there were more under the neighbors’ bushes, we only had Jaas and Muulah.
“So now what?” Bob asked. “We have to call anybody? Of course we do. But who?”
“Mmmm. Let’s think this out. What if there’s nothing down there? No box. No nothing? We’d cause a lot of headache and grief for nothing.”
“But what if… it’s some other culture that, I don’t know, that buries treasures with the deceased?” Bob countered.
“Or aliens,” I countered back.
"How do you account for the English?" Bob asked.
"Well, we are in New Jersey. And English has been spoken here for what, four hundred years?"
“We’d never even get a peek at ‘em. Or see a dime of any treasure,” Bob said, referring to authorities taking control.
“Tell you what,” I began. “Let’s tarp the headstones, and then do some deep digging.”
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Writing Prompt Your character discovers something unexpected when digging. Write a story about this thing. It could include backstory of how it got there, consequences for the character finding it, or both. Modern, historical, or future. Be creative! Choose one of the following options as the basis... 1. Digging a hole in the backyard 2. Dumpster diving in the city No poetry. Any genre. 300 words minimum. |
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