/lit/ - Literature

HOLE DIGGER
The girl dug at the ground with a single finger, creating a very small hole. Her jaw hung stupidly, while her eyes were intensely locked on her project. She had to stay focused on the hole, she had to stay distracted. Because, when something happens that is too horrible for you to cope with, the best you can do is create a distraction.
Her nail filled with dirt while tears quietly stung her eyes. She could feel heat from the fire that was at her back, but her mind told her that it wasn't her body feeling the heat. Her right hand felt the warmth of blood rushing into its fingertips, the bat that it had held lay by her side. Her eyes focused on the hole, not wanting to look up, not wanting to see.
She started the fire, but that was ok because the fire was righteous and it closed around the evil, purifying it. But what that stinging hand had done with the bat was not right, it couldn't be her hand that felt the sting. She was righteous, that stinging hand was not.
It couldn't be hers, but it was. And The Hole.
The hole.
Hadn't he told her about the hole? He said he dreamed of it. He described a man in a fur coat, with a hood drawn over his head, and a shovel in his hands. He said the man didn't have a face, but it was probably just a trick of the light. The sun was setting behind the hooded shovel wielding man, it brightened the outlines of his shoulders but darkened his face.
When Jamie walked beside her and told her of this dream, he said the words came into his mind the second he saw him: HOLE DIGGER. He said the hole had already been finished, and the hole digger just stood over it. Shovel in one hand, the other hand pointing into the hole. Under his hood his face revealed nothing, because Jamie couldn't see his face, but somehow he knew the hole digger wanted him to look inside. HE also knew that if he looked into the hole that it would drive him mad. Because there was some secret buried there, and if he knew the secret it would eventually lead to his death.
He never said whether or not he looked in, but now he was dead, and she was alive. Her hand stung, the end of the bat was red. Her face was covered in a warm liquid, and her nail was filling with dirt. She was digging a hole. One hand stinging, the other digging a hole.

Digging a hole, digging a hole
The hole digger; digging a hole.