Sixth Sentence, Part 1

Lena sipped her merlot and asked Bart, “So, what is it that you do?”

Bart glanced up from behind his maroon tonic, smirked. “Oh, I’m a Righter, and during the day, I work in the mailroom at the Chronicle.”

“Oh.” She swigged a mouthful from the glass, then for good measure, took another drink. “How long have you been doing it?”

He set down the wine, picked up his water glass. “Oh, couple of years now. I needed to pay the bills, a friend introduced me.”

“And how long have you been working at the Chronicle?”

He smiled. “It’s been my childhood dream. I’ve been Righting since before I can remember. My parents have pictures of me with crayons and construction paper, scrawling fat, backwards letters out, giant circles ending my sentences.” Bart took a long pull from the water.

“Well. Anything I’ve heard of?”

He swirled the wine, more to find his next word than to aerate it. “Probably not. I mostly Right small incidents. It usually doesn’t pay well, but each time, I get a little more noticed.” He shrugged, part apology, part devil-may-care. “Who knows? The other day, I Righted a cat in a tree. Someday, maybe I’ll make a living out of it.”

“Isn’t that mundane?” Lena drained the glass and reached for the bottle. Bart intercepted it first and filled her glass three-fourths filled.

“Righting?”

“No, cats in trees. Really, you could write about anything, couldn’t you?”

“Maybe, but how often do we get the chance to choose what we Right? You show up, something grabs your attention, you’re needed, you grab the opportunity, dash off a few sentences.”

Lena dipped half a breadstick in her merlot. “So, you freelance?”

“Sort of, yeah. I prefer to think of it as mercenary, except with less money. But enough about me, for now. What do you do?”

Marco appeared at their table, balancing a wide circular tray. “The filet mignon for madam, and the vegetarian paella for sir. Can I bring you anything else, some more merlot perhaps?”

Bart shook the bottle as Lena said “Yes.” She downed the remainder of her glass in a gulp. “Please.”

“Very well.” Marco bowed his head in the almost-so-subtle-as-to-be-unnoticed manner, then disappeared. The tray followed soon after.

“I see you like the wine.” Bart tilted the remainder into Lena’s glass, careful not to let the sediment tumble in. As if he’d practiced his whole life, the residue remained within the bottle.

“Takes a lot to get me drunk.” Lena shrugged, then drank. “Well, let’s eat.”

The next few minutes, they consumed their dishes, background static filling the space between them. Marco reappeared, replaced the empty bottle with a fresh victim, and poofed out of existence.

“So, I didn’t get an answer. What do you do?”

Lena sighed. “I work in Reality.” She bit her lip for a few seconds, then forked a bit of bacon perched atop a rare slice of steak into her mouth, chewed it like cud.

“You must be doing well, lots of the houses around here are going up. Seems like a seller’s market.” Bart poured himself a second glass of merlot, smacked his lips at the sweeter bouquet from this bottle.

“I work in corporate, mostly. Not too concerned with the lives of individuals. Small potatoes, really.”

“Really.” He stirred the rice, as if expecting to create a vortex to another dimension that would suck him through. “If it’s not a violation of confidentiality, could I ask what businesses you’ve worked with?”

“Biotech recently. GenForth, DNAtoZ, ChromeGenome.” She waved her hand, then looked down at her hip. “Excuse me.” She removed a hand-held device, started pecking away with her thumbs.

Bart took this opening to remove the notepad from his pocket. He flipped to the entry dated for today, read the two sentences he’d committed. “Lena accepted Bart’s dinner invitation with an open mind and a willing heart. The early part of the meal went swimmingly, filled with intriguing conversation and light flirting.” He looked at this frowning woman, still pecking away, oblivious to everything around her. With a graphite stub, Bart committed a third sentence: “Despite Lena’s initial reticence, Bart’s charm and personality won her over by the time dessert arrived at the table.” He thought a moment, then scratched out the words “at the table.”

He slipped the notepad back into his right pocket, and the pencil in the left, so as not to have it drop through the hole in the right pocket. Looked back at Lena, still thumbing away, though her pace slowed to half-jittery.

“That’s interesting, haven’t all those companies gone broke recently?”

She placed the hand-held on the table, squaring it alongside her knife. “And that’s why they needed to sell their buildings.”

“I had some stock in them, they seemed to be doing great for the long run.”

“That’s a shame, I hope you didn’t have too much.”

“Who wants to retire at 85 anyway?” He scooped some more brown rice into his mouth, scooping a grain away from the corner of his mouth.

They continued their monotonous chewing. Every time Bart tried to say something thereafter, an invisible needle sewed his lips shut, and he mouthed more paella in to keep from choking on the unsaid words. Meanwhile, Lena toyed with yet another glass of wine and her BlackBerry.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Bart started, but Lena was lost in the tiny screen. At the bar, he dashed off a quick sentence, spoke to a married couple, and got both their phone numbers. Clearly, it wasn’t his defect, so what was going wrong?

He splashed cold water in his face, then tried drying it off with multiple paper towels. Each one kept tearing. How was she counteracting his Righting? Yes, this wasn’t the most philanthropic purpose, but still, it should have had some effect on her. He took out the notepad. Two more sentences for the night. Mustard had him covered, so he could play around, but what to Right? He tapped the pencil against the sink, then against the mirror, then started with the following statement: “As if a sign from the heavens, the dessert tray hit her, breaking her BlackBerry, and leaving her vulnerable to Bart’s advances.” He suspected that device fouled up his Righting somehow. Halfway through the sentence, he cracked the pencil point, leaving an errant period right after the second “her.”

This happened a few times before, mostly with pens running out of ink or jamming. This was why he switched to wooden pencils, because mechanical pencil leads were too fragile. Would he have to start using charcoal? Bart ran the water and washed his hands over and over, waiting. More and more handsoap, more and more water. His hands started to chap, but still he rubbed and cleansed. The scream never came.

Bart nudged the bathroom door open, peered out, then stepped into the restaurant proper. Smartly dressed waiters bustled around the tables, popping in and out to leave food, only to disappear just as quickly. Lena pecked away at her BlackBerry, still seated at the table. Somehow, two dessert trays wandered through the room, but neither came near her, like electrons around a nucleus.

Bart went back to the bathroom and shook the notepad, as if something would tumble out. He blew through the pages to clear out dirt, then flipped through them as if something would reveal itself. What the hell was going on? And then it hit him, like a pie to the face. The sour face, the cryptic statements, the constant typing on the BlackBerry, as if she were issuing long-winded commands. They were Righting each other. They were wronging each other.

This had only happened a couple of times before. The stakes were higher then, but Bart shivered more now. It had been a long time since he’d interacted with someone without the Right. The person that he wanted to be, the person that he could be, existed only in the pad of paper. Six sentences a day, imbued with the weight of the world. Six sentences to reshape the world in his graven image. The power of a god in sixty words a day. And now, it was lost to an angry woman with a BlackBerry.

And then, he thought about it a little more. Running his hands beneath the water, blood ready to squeeze from his fingers, he thought about her statements, and the broken companies. She was about ready to leave, if she had not done so already. Bart felt safe in assuming she would not leave until he paid the bill. Peeking out again, sure enough, a black tray lay waiting on the table as Lena poked away.

He knew nothing about her power, but everything about her. At least, everything she was willing to reveal over this mockery of a date, or that Mustard did and did not tell him. Damn Mustard. The only thing he knew was that it didn’t work on her, directly or indirectly. What was this, another test? What was he doing that he needed her distracted, and didn’t want to tell him? So many questions for the mentor; they would have to be answered later. God damn his tests.


Could one sentence save a night? He was about to find out. Not that she would have noticed, but he couldn’t stay hidden inside the bathroom for much longer without drawing her attention. Bart rotated the pencil on his back molars, grinding out a graphite stub. The splinters lodged between his teeth and in his cheek, but he didn’t care. They would dissolve soon enough; they always did. He scrawled out the last sentence for the night, then checked his watch. Nine-thirty, wow. Only another one hundred and fifty minutes until the reset.

He smoothed out his greying hair, the water beading, dribbling down his forehead. No matter how much he tried to Right them away, the crow’s feet and forehead wrinkles continued creasing his visage. Patted down the suit, as if looking for contraband, then went back out to the table. Before sitting down, Bart patted the notepad in his pants pocket, as if for good luck, then sat back down.

***

Part 2 next week. Somewhat substandard, I think I wanted to start this as a short scene from a play, then lost my way for a bit. Dialogue needs work.

More Daffodils

Bruce hadn't slept in two months. He watched fifty-seven moonsets and fifty-eight moonrises. Some of them, he'd viewed through the frost-narrowed panes in his bedroom window. Others he’d driven through, radio blaring, windows rolled down, moonshine dappling the quiet road. In an old life, he'd dreamt of having the time to watch these supposed modern miracles. Sadly, like so many other things these days, nature proved itself mundane and persistent. Precious few miracles on this never-ending day.

During these moments in his eternal vigil, Bruce had very little to do, except perhaps climb the naked trees. Odds favored him being the only person awake within fifty miles. Only the city denizens remained up or woke up now. He drew a deep breath, relished the self-imposed More Daffodil solitude. Bruce hawked up a forest green phlegm clot, reached for one pill box, then the other. Passed a few nondescript pills into his hand, then chewed them into a dry paste. It scraped his throat like a trowel. Another second awake meant another second to stave off blank eternity.

Modafinil. More Daffodils prized your nocturnal hibernation from your body, and illuminated your life with an everlasting daytime. Bruce needed it to cheat nature of its due, by living every last waking second he could steal. He could sleep when the minions of forever indoctrinated him into their rank and file. Bruce leaned back, chair squalling in protest. Winter slumped silent outside the window, save an occasional crisp wind boosting dry leaves skyward. Bruce's heartbeat punctuated the settled still. So long as it beat, he remained in the game. Bruce ticked off most of the The List, but there were still tasks to complete, weren’t there?

The List haunts everyone, whether conscious of it or not. The List of dreams that bestow worth and meaning unto one’s personal life. The List you make a slow, concerted effort towards completing over your natural lifespan. The List that, more often than not, ends unfulfilled, regrets distilled into “if only.” The List so intertwined with your existence, it tolls meaningless for everyone save you. The List exists as an independent entity unto itself; whether or not you appease it will not change whether or not it follows you.

Bruce’s first experience with The List came from group therapy. At Dr. Williams’s behest, four months ago, they invited him for a session. After all, pain shared is pain halved, no? Bruce milled on into the room a few minutes before the session began. The members sat in a wide circle. Stress-gaunt cheeks, even on the pudgy faces, stretched taut. He sat in the only empty chair, trying not to think about the previous occupant, where they were, if they still were. The rest of them smoothed crinkled papers on their laps. They ran their cracked and weathered fingers down their lists, comparing with each other, housewives sharing morbid recipes. Their cotton-mouthed words, imbued with flinty resolve, told of their unique losses. Hair. Bodily control. Cars. Families. Song. Hope.

It wasn’t until Bruce heard about The List that he realized his remained sorely incomplete. Lifelong goals can wait until middle-age, when youthful power and vitality dissipate, and it falls upon you to devise a new purpose for existing. However, terminal cancer imparts a stark knowledge and a subtle blessing. Bruce, unlike most, knew with unreasonable certainty, and reasonable fear, the day of his death. Here in the twilight of his spirit, moments removed from a subtle fade into virtual old-age, now was the time to complete The List he’d not even known about ten minutes previous.

Their simple words washed over Bruce as easily as sunlight. He opened his eyes, daydreaming of what he would do if given unlimited resources and limited time. The road receded behind him; the road rose to meet him. Littered fast-food wrappers, mostly McDonalds with congealed morning sandwich grease, papered all around him. The upholstered metal shell of his ten year-old Mitsubishi creaked, while he streaked across the country. The answer floated itself to the forefront. On the back of the daily agenda, he scrawled out the only concrete version of The List he would ever need. All around the contiguous U.S., there awaited landmarks, cities, points of interest. He totaled eighty-five locales. Once memorialized, Bruce sat attentive, enthralled by their words, his leg shaking as he itched to get started.

As they spoke, Bruce looked his fellow patients/victims/sufferers in the eyes. Purpled caution and bleak sclera mirrored back. None of them appeared to have slept well. How could they? The drugs crippled their internal systems to barely functioning levels, just so they could continue their half-lives, ticking away double-time. Right before he left group therapy, he borrowed another pen, this one blue-inked, and block-printed a last challenge. Whistling as he opened the doors, skipping to his car, laughing as he backed out of the parking lot, Bruce never returned to group therapy. Their group mentality helped him more than they could have suspected.

Back in his room, still slumped in his chair, he reached for The (crease-worn) List. His capacity to drive all night, coffee-infused nervous system jittering the entire time, conquered site after site. Ticks and cross-outs graffitied the wrinkled landscape. Everything had been completed, save one final blue-penned entry, in stark contrast to the dark black ink. That last-second bastard addition. "Get a good night's sleep.” When he got back from group therapy, Bruce scanned the list, laughed at number eighty-six, and decided to knock out numero uno: "All night road trip." Bruce found some friends willing to give it a go, and off they went. Ubiquitous Starbucks provided checkpoints betwixt goals. 7-11 provided the beef jerky and Doritos. His strange Latin-named drugs staved off tumor growth. Long periods of natural silence provided a soundtrack to their journey, but in the end, Bruce had dirt from Pikes Peak and Four Corners. He’d even urinated on both, the smell of steamy coffee rising to meet the group.

Bruce returned with the cheapest tchotchkes he could find, a tile puzzle with four tiles, and a branch carved to look like the mountain. In his backyard, he spread the dirt by opening the water bottle and upending it, first a slow pour, then a full-on deluge. Much of it ended up on his already dirt-stained slacks. The man in him knew there was no way these actions could ward off the cancer, or grant him more time. The boy in him kept collecting talismans and dirt and going through with the motions.

The trips did not satiate his hunger; they turned out to be tantalizing appetizers for a main course he could not return to the chef. One five-day road trip gave them all a break and a good opportunity to celebrate a life too short. Three and four trips ground on them, an escape they could not afford. What none of them admitted out loud, least of all himself, they had to continue living their lives, and he wanted them to live what remained of his. To the rest of his compatriots, life was a luxury, so abundant as to be wasted. To Bruce, it was an essential need, dwindling away. He could not spare even the seconds it took to stop the car by the side of the road and force Margie to squat in an open field. What he longed to say was that neither could they, not that he ever did. He wasn’t sure they would believe him, he, their modern Cassandra.

In the end, as we all do in the end, he went it alone. Stocked up on instant coffee crystals and sugar, a bittersweet crystalline trail mix. Townships, cities, backwater locations, nothing more than checkpoints. His brief interludes at home coincided with so-called “dead time,” slipped in between every other existence, no one to talk or relate to. Each return home required multiple little white pills (to help him live) and one little white lie (it’s all ok, as long as you have The List).

The worst came in an Alabama, at the seedy Motel 6. The creaking bed had seen more action on its own than many brothels. It was a wonder the thing hadn’t split down the middle. Seventy-one hours awake, his mind swimming across a hazy sea, Bruce had to stop here and rest. He leaned back, carefully, on the love bed, plastic shopping bags from the Piggly-Wiggly draped unartfully across the surface. Sleep brushed his forehead lightly, inviting him to embrace her. All he need do was close his eyes.

A throwaway thought, the kind normally forgotten when you stumble into sleep, scraped his thoughts: “What if I go in my sleep?” Despite the flat black painting the room, you could almost see his eyes crack open, flashing beneath the moonlight. That night, he lay atop the bags, rolling back and forth, the crunching and crackling keeping him frustrated, but awake. Oh, so awake, and so alive. It hurt so good.

At seven in the morning, Bruce stumbled into the nearest greasy spoon and bought a coffee pot. He kept it at the table and drank from the plastic spout, settling it down on an earthenware plate. Dumped in thirty packs of sugar after he finished about a third, swirled it around to dissolve it. It scorched deep burns onto his tongue; he had yet to taste correctly since. Laden with caffeine, he called Dr. Williams, explained the situation in thirty seconds, then slowed down and tried to explain it in a coherent fashion. Dr. Williams faxed the prescription to the local pharmacy. Thirty minutes later, he jittered into the pharmacy and asked for More Daffodils. Bruce went back to the diner, where they comped him a cup of joe. The napkin holder rattled as he sat there, watching the clock. An hour later, he went back to the pharmacy, procured three month supply of More Daffodils, bought a pack of adult diapers, large, and popped four of the new pills as soon as he reached the parking lot. On that ride towards Kansas, he stopped twice in nineteen hours to change his diapers, sopping to the brim with cycled coffee. Each diaper he left on the road left a smile on his face. Soon, the permanent coffee odors would be nothing more than a plausibly deniable memory. He squished a little more and went back to the long dark road.

Medical science conquered all but the mundane common cold and common death. At the hospital, three days after Alabama, Dr. Williams showed him around. Bruce smelled the antiseptic bed, and the old flatulence burned into the foam rubber. Damned if his final mark on this planet would turn someone's nose. They filled his cradled arms with medicines and prescriptions he couldn't pronounce, much less care about, and his new friends, More Daffodils, and his morphine, and set him loose. Not that they loved him, nor did they suspect he would come back. He discharged himself, and was no longer their, or anyone else’s, responsibility.

And he drove, he drove so far away. And he drove, he drove all night and day. And he listened to a lot of songs on the radio. And The List collapsed in on itself. And now, it taunted him with that one singular note, one night’s sleep. Bruce hadn’t slept in so long. He’d stopped with More Daffodils for two days now, and still couldn’t sleep. A perverse side effect that they didn’t tell you about, because it wasn’t really life-threatening. Bruce yawned. He blinked to wash the sleep from his eyes. Finally, it was about time. Checked the empty pill bottle, modafinil. Opened the other bottle, morphine, and emptied a few more pills into his hand, then into his mouth. Pain, background chatter, with enough pills, you could ignore it all. Two months since he'd left the hospital, when the doctors told him he'd had three months of life.

He slipped beneath his bedsheets and farted. Pulling the cover back down from his head, gasping for fresh air, another throwaway thought touched him. Assume a person wakes for sixteen hours, and sleeps for eight. Two-thirds of every day is spent “living.” Dr. Williams said he had three months to live, that was his best guess. Fine, but if that was true, he'd lived his allotted three months, crammed into the past two, pushing sleep back further and further. Had to complete The List. But it all passed so quick. Bruce found himself daydreaming, wondering what he could have done with another month, when everyone was awake. Now, while everyone had just slipped the bonds of waking usefulness, or were ready to put them back on, he would sleep, just out of touch with everyone else.

Panic coursed through him, much as it had in Alabama. He tried to stand, say something to the empty house, call someone, but the morphine kicked in. Yawned again, a giant jaw-dislocating bite. The room wavered (or did he?) and the desk lamp dimmed. All around, details faded, as if an artiste were deconstructing his world, stripping it to its bare essentials. One by one, the accoutrements of The (hastily planned, short-lived) List, dissolved into static, replaced with a warm, uncomforting blackness. It floated away on the sea of his future.

Bruce ended up staring at the light, spotlighting the twinned pill bottles. The light ebbed, and each bottle winked out, leaving little more than a pinprick of light amidst bleakness. Each of his blinks lasted longer, each thought slowed. All the games he played these past two months, and he'd not even gotten a good night's sleep. Breath soft, heart weak, Bruce closed his eyes.

For the last time in two months, Bruce finally dreamt.

***

I'd like to think this is one of the better items I've written as of late, perhaps because I've spent so much time editing it. Editing is the key to writing. Writing is easy, and if you'd read the first draft, you'd know what I mean. This has changed a lot, and I think (I hope) for the better.

Also, I know the story is kind of a downer, but I guess it's my gift to all of you reading this. Merry Christmas!

Demean Yourself, Part 5

Veidt: Jon, wait, before you leave... I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.
Dr. Manhattan: “In the end?” Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.
-Alan Moore, Watchmen, Chapter 12

You might ask yourself, what did he mean when he said, “I thought it was all over”? I direct you to Dr. Manhattan’s words: “Nothing ever ends.” As I grow older, it becomes harder and harder to cloak myself in an immature exterior and personality (not that I won’t keep trying). I cannot hide this legal status from people so easily. It all comes out. At work, the day after my admission, I met the newhire working in my office. We exchanged hellos, and the first thing she said thereafter was, “So, I heard you were admitted to the bar yesterday.” Though I have appended “Esq.” to my nameplate as a joke, I am now a lawyer. Living, breathing lawyer. I took that oath. I took that oath seriously. Damn me for taking that oath seriously.

This is my white whale. It will dog me. I can squirrel this information away and move to a faraway land. Nonetheless, people will ferret it out and see me differently for it, because of it, in spite of it. I could shout myself horse belaboring the animal puns, but you get the idea. To those given much, much is expected. And really, I was just trying to pick up my life as if I had never been to law school, never passed the bar, never been admitted to the bar. Trying to live a life that would have followed fairly naturally from my graduation, if I had more free reign over my choices.

It’s not something I can do forever, or even much longer. “Waste,” they cry out in their stolid body language. “Shame,” the undertones of their voices float to me. And to an extent, I agree. All I ever wanted to do was make peoples’ lives a little better. Now, I could do so in a way that most people could only dream about (though their dreams rest on a cracked foundation of misguided information and half-truths). The system is still a barrelling juggernaut, unstoppable due to the momentum it’s gained from its own ponderous weight. People pay lawyers to explain the inexplicable. My “people” are the most mundane heroes on earth. My “people” are the most insidious villains on earth. Our battles play out without bright drawings of spandex, without snappy dialogue, without supplements purchasable for three dollars a pop. Still, the battles rage on, whether I choose to take up arms or not.

Have I ever changed my position, that I do not want to be a lawyer? No, oh no. Do I feel compelled to suck it up and try to do something with the degree and the bar membership? Yes, oh yes. It is only a matter of time now before guilt drives me into doing legal work. And that depresses me, because in addition to doing almost everything I ever wanted, I can do almost everything I never wanted, and it makes me laugh.

***

Back to the Sunday only posting next week. Why is fiction so much harder to get right?

Demean Yourself, Part 4

Finally, we are herded into the court room. Right before we enter, they check our names one more time. They rattle off our serial numbers, and we parrot back our last names. So worried the wrong people might take the oath? Really, anyone that’s going to illegally practice law isn’t going to take this oath. They’re just going to set up shop and forge some documents, much easier.

The courtroom’s overall effect is to leave you feeling exposed, which I assume is the ideal sensation for a locale intended to strip away the layers of lies to reach the Truth. Rich mahogany tones dominate the carpeting, while the walls are strong earthy tones. Above, where a supplicant’s gaze might fall when they pray for succor, bright whites converge upon a false domed center. As we shuttle in, flash bulbs sparkle and erupt. For this moment in our lives, we are superstars. For some of us, it is not the first time. For most of us, I hope, it will not be the last. A series of small chairs await us, all lined up edge to edge, about two and a half feet tall, five rows worth. We sidle in, as they plan to cram two hundred of us into this room that might comfortably hold one hundred and forty. In front of me, the back of a chair is patched with a thick stripe of electrical tape. Further, several of my erstwhile classmates, now colleagues, carry with them the stresses and expectations of their legal careers, as well as several extra pounds. Directly in front of me, two of my fellow almost-lawyers are seated neatly betwixt chairs, due to the substantial girth of others in the line.

As I peruse the pictures now, I see that a largish man, over six feet tall, pushing two-fifty, is positioned between myself and my mother the camerawoman. Thus, random giant, know I have many pictures of you, and that you present a striking figure. Also, my mom hates you, and tells you to lose some weight, fatty.

The judges are introduced, and file in to fill the seven crimson seats on the bench. They are introduced individually, and judges Battaglia and Greene, the bookenders, actually whisper congratulations to us. Chief Judge Bell gives his opening remarks, and throws it over to a speaker, whose inability to keep his place in the text and nervous stuttering nonetheless keep us rapt with silence, if only because we must sit through his words to get to the prize.

When he concludes his remarks, we are directed to stand and introduce ourselves individually to the court. Many of my cohort are rather soft-spoken, and the courtroom lacks optimized operatic acoustics. Their words fall short of even my ears, two rows back. When it comes to me, I falter for a second, gathering my thoughts. Really, these consisted of “Speak loud” and “Your name is K.T, not James Chang.” I fairly yell my name at the bench, then sit back down. I learn Tetris’ name, which I have already forgotten. The trend continues.

Judge Greene gives his speech. From the moment he walked in, I had him pegged as a severe man, with his rigid countenance and the fact that he’s a judge. Yet again, the first impression rule fails me, and my inability to read people remains curiously intact. He discusses that we must better the legal community, and implicit, we must better society. Judge Greene relays to us his top five list for getting mentioned in the Daily Record, Maryland’s legal periodical. Get romantically involved with emotionally vulnerable clients. Never return client phone calls; never do what they ask. His number one method for notoriety, never listen to your client. I reproduce/paraphrase his anecdote, taken straight from court proceedings.

Judge: Before I sentence you, have you any words for the court?
Accused: I want a new lawyer.
Judge: Why?
Accused: He doesn’t listen to a word I say.
Judge: Counselor, what do you have to say about that?
Lawyer: I’m sorry, Your Honor, I wasn’t paying attention.

Judge Greene leaves us with sage advice, gleaned from a jar of mayonnaise: “Keep cool, but do not freeze.”

Chief Judge Bell asks for objections to our admission to the bar. No one objects. He tells us he has yet to get any takers. For a fleet moment, I consider raising my hand. Now, to trip myself up like, to demean myself in such a fashion, mere moments before taking the oath, would have been the K.T. thing to do, but perhaps not the most prudent thing to do.

We stand and face to our right, and repeat the oath. "I, [K.T.], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will at all times demean myself fairly and honorably as an attorney and practitioner at law; that I will bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland, and support the laws and Constitution thereof, and that I will bear true allegiance to the United States, and that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution, laws and government thereof as the supreme law of the land; any law or ordinance of this or any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

For those of you that have fallen behind in your studies on the archaic meanings of words, demean here takes the meaning of “to carry oneself.” In today’s parlance, it means “to insult another.” As the clerk of the court spoke the oath aloud for us to repeat, half of us balked on “demean.” We actually skipped over it, as one might hop over a curse when speaking to a respected individual. The other half just went ahead and said it. I was one of the hoppers.

And that was that. I took the oath. Chief Judge Bell thanked our parents on our behalf for their support. Several of us (lawyers) started laughing. He wondered what the joke was, and thanked them again. We filed out to applause and accolades, and signed the book with the signatures of all new admittees. Number Thirty-three got lost, and so had to cram her name in the tiny gap between Thirty-two and Thirty-four. Of course, she came up right before I got to sign, holding me up just that little bit longer.

Right after, I received the certificate. My mom took a picture of this, and I’ve got the biggest grin on my face. You’ve never seen me so happy in a picture. There are only two pictures where I look so unselfconsciously gleeful, after the age of eight. This is one of them, because at the moment, I thought it was all over. There were a few other packets, and I learn that I have to pay one hundred and thirty dollars a year to the client protection fund. Why? I will probably need to dip into that fund at the rate I’m going. I’m poor, don’t take my money.

Demean Yourself, Part 3

Sometimes I feel, oh yes, I could do
Almost everything I wanted
And it makes me cry – Tomoko Tane, “Flying Teapot”

I [state your name] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will at all times demean myself fairly and honorably as an attorney and practitioner at law; that I will bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland, and support the laws and Constitution thereof, and that I will bear true allegiance to the United States, and that I will support, protect and defend the Constitution, laws and government thereof as the supreme law of the land; any law or ordinance of this or any State to the contrary notwithstanding. – Oath of Attorney at Law

How many oaths have I sworn in my life? Millions, every one inconsequential. How many promises lay broken, by the wayside, because I did not take them seriously? More than I can count, more than I will admit to myself. Why is this one, an oath that I still can’t believe I took, one that may impact my life only peripherally, now the world upon my shoulders?

There was nothing special about that Wednesday morning; there never is on special days. It’s weather, nothing more. Rain? Cleared up later. My parents were convinced it was because I was going to be admitted to the bar, but what about the earlier ceremonies that day? Are they less worthy than me?

I met up with them and we drove down to Annapolis. We got lost on the way to the Court of Appeals (Maryland’s highest court), but after a few minutes, we still made it there in time. Only forty-five minutes to spare. I lost the instructions on where to park. Based on the directions we received, we parked at the Calvary church across from the court house, as opposed to the actual pay lot ten minutes away. Outside, I met M.R., one of my classmates. She had just been admitted, and was absolutely paranoid about anyone touching her certificate. Not even her mother was allowed to touch it. At this point, she informed me that one of our classmates, J.H., died the week before. I did not know him well, but whenever we saw each other, we would talk a little and joke around. He had a wife and two kids (at the time, I only knew of one). J.H. was a good guy. He seemed set, and now this. What a cruel joke life is.

Soon thereafter, a red car from the eighties (boxy corners) jumped the curb, then slammed back down onto the street, right in front of us. I wanted to say something along the lines of, “Wow, what an idiot, there’s no one else anywhere on the road.” Thankfully, I did not, because a second later, I saw it was M.R.’s father.

A little later, I saw V.S., nee V.B. Just married, her biggest worry was that when we announced our names, she would announce her maiden name. No doubt this would not disqualify her from admission, but you have to understand our collective mindset. To suffer everything we have, only to be stopped for misstating your name, would be the height of absurdity, and legal mitigation for manslaughter. (No, I am not advocating manslaughter or mocking legal justification, just saying.)

Since we arrived so early, we had time to wait. The Court of Appeals building has a wonderful lobby, circular, two-tiered, centering about a bronzed plaque of a woman. I did not have time to inspect it closely, but it appeared that she was topless. Now, this could just be me seeing what I wanted to, and it probably was. I’m not sure why I mentioned that, but the quavering in my legs (not my loins) started, and I guess my mind was wandering.

Finally, we were told to go up to the fourth floor, tender our twenty dollars to sign in, and receive our preassigned numbers. Before the ceremony, we were to line up in the hallway in numerical order, beneath the numbers they posted along the wall. I got thirty-nine. A good, strong number, full of character and heart. On the way back down, I met C.S. He was in the elevator with a very cute girl that we’d seen in our professionalism course. We both commented on this later. She got forty, he got thirty-two. Both also strong numbers. And, what’s that, she’s right behind me?

Back downstairs, I met C.S.’s mom and he met my parents. His mom and my mom hit it off like gangbusters. My dad, on the other hand, was nodding off in a leather-upholstered chair. I don’t blame him, I would have taken a nap if I was sitting around with nothing to do.

As C.S. and I were talking about what was about to happen, the unnamed one came up to us. No, he’s not a leper. I have had several classes with him, he’s a good guy, it just happens that we do not know each others’ names. Further, I believe that we both know we do not know each others’ names, and that it is embarrassing after three and a half years, we do not know each others’ names. Neither of us knows how to break that awkwardness, so we always refer to each other without names. In lieu of introducing him to everyone (which several people commented on later), I merely slid my body between him and everyone else. Passed him my Nintendo DS to play, so as to help with that awkwardness. Tetris DS is as good a name as any, so from here on out, he is Tetris.

Finally, we leave our loved ones and ascend to the fourth floor. Line up in the cattle call assembly line, stripped of every identifier but our “unique” numbers, repeated only thirteen other times during the past two days. We learn that due to the numbers of admittees, they have this ceremony fourteen times over the past couple of days. We are session thirteen of fourteen. If not for the work we put in, it would almost seem like a diploma mill.

I talk a bit with the cute girl, but really do not know what to say. In addition to the normal awkwardness associated with talking to complete strangers and pretty women, I also have that additional fear that she’ll ask me where I’m working. Already, I told the professionalism course small group that I was James Chang, and I worked in entertainment, but was interested in admiralty. Not that she would have remembered, but how many more lies would I have to tell? How many more lies will I tell?

Demean Yourself, Part 2

Several speakers welcome us to their little shindig. Words are spoken that cannot be unspoken. I sort of feel bad at not remembering the exact words, but the gist revolved around having pride in yourself since you've almost made it, and not being a complete jackass. Chief Judge Bell, of the Maryland Court of Appeals (the highest court in the state) also speaks. This will not be the last time I hear him in my life, in this week even. Hopefully I will never have to appear before him in a legal capacity, client or counselor. His mustache is so bushy, it may be mistaken for a small woodland animal, perhaps a squirrel?

They have divided us up into fifteen small groups, and we are sent forth to our rooms. If you want to skip the next few paragraphs, I will sum up the day's lessons right here, right now. It is ok, the words will continue to inhabit this space, whether you read them or not. You can skip down to the bold lettering: CONTINUE READING HERE.

-Be nice to everyone.
-Treat your fellow lawyers with respect.
-Do not lie.
-Always talk to your clients.
-Do not be a jackass.

There, I saved you five hours of my life.

Our first speaker held the title of "Master." This is apparently some reference to juvenile court, according to C.S. Based on the link, he is correct. I do not know, and cared not enough to find out. He showed us a video on how to comport yourself during litigation. This video is so old, the term "little darlin'" is used to refer to a female lawyer.

The second session duo were fairly nondescript. The judge was quite elderly, hair whiter than clean linoleum. They did make us introduce ourselves by stating our names, where we attended school, and what we practiced. Naturally, since this is a professionalism course, and I will be working with these people for the rest of my life, here is what I said: "Hi, I'm James Chang [not my real name]. I graduated from Maryland. I currently work in entertainment, but I hope to get into admiralty."

Our third lecture, the duo dated themselves. Not in the homosexual fashion of holding hands and dancing, but in the chronological fashion of showing how elderly they are. They showed us a clip from the movie "Nuts," starring Barbara Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss. What elevated this beyond normal embarrassment to the realm of cringing embarrassment was the portrayal of a legal system long since outdated. Lawyers were more freelancers, relying on judges to apportion out cases for them. Today’s discerning litigator will be hired directly by the client. If you work for the indigent, you will be assigned cases, but will also be paid a regular salary by the state. All this set up to ask us, "Who is the client?"

Further, one of our duo flashed a big, dripping smile when he started talking about the "secret" of the movie, that (spoiler) Barbara Streisand's character was molested by her father, and that was why she was having mental and emotional problems. (spoiler ends)
This is not funny. There are a great many things in this world you can, and should, laugh at. Child abuse, no. I like children, and am in many ways still a child. I identify with children. There is nothing fun about tearing away a child's naivete and innocence through sexual abuse. Why did our group leader smile so? Damned if I know.

At half past eleven, most normal gatherings would have given us lunch. The bar instead barraged us with several spiels about pro bono work and malpractice insurance for solo practitioners. Did you know that when your caseload is the lightest, malpractice insurance is the least expensive? I certainly did not. Intriguing, isn’t it?

Finally, the last class consisted of the topic of community. Somehow, both of our assigned speakers could not make it, so we had a completely unprepared balding man come in and give us the Socratic Method for forty minutes. (I am not trying to say that his bare pate meant he was unqualified to present to us. I am merely trying to say that he was both unprepared and balding, and that is coincidental. He could have been sporting a clown wig, poofed up to the ceiling, boasting all the colors of the rainbow. This would not change his uselessness. This is what our sixty-five dollars went towards? You, sir, shame yourself, and you shame us.)

“What does it mean to be involved in the community?” You tell us, you're the speaker. Even with fifteen minutes to prep, you should be able to come up with something, anything, better than what you did. At one point, he asked someone how they would help the community, and they responded by mentoring students. The jackass further asked how he would do that, and the guy responded, by mentoring students. It was sad, depressing, and a waste of all our time.

CONTINUE READING HERE.

The Bar Association claimed this professionalism course was necessary. All it taught me was that they could only find the arrogant few to come talk to us, and that the law really does consume your life. Several times we were warned to not let the law become the driving force in our life, as if the speakers had succumbed to that unholy thrill.

Before we left, we had to sign our names again. They made it clear if we did not sign, we would not receive credit. You can bet your sweet bippy I signed their sheet. As I stepped outside, pocket full of oranges, I looked back at the mighty throng, talking, discussing their futures. I know they will be just fine. Why? Because they will continue on with their lawyering, whether I acknowledge it or not. Whether or not I give it a second thought, they will continue to thrive.

Demean Yourself, Part 1

Oh, I could hide, ‘neath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings.
The six o’clock alarm would never ring.
But it rings and I rise,
Wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
My shaving razor’s cold and it stings. – John Stewart, “Daydream Believer”

I know from a logical standpoint that five ante meridian exists. I know that just because I am not conscious of it does not mean that it never happens. There are many things I do not experience that still happen. Stars supernova. Life perpetuates. Clocks tick. These things I know. Still, it does not give me joy to prove five in the morning exists, especially when I wake up to see that terse message on my alarm clock. “5:00.”

I hopped over the side of my metal futon, over the pile of books, magazines and legal pads piled beneath, and clicked off the little plastic nub. Plastic pet silenced, I stumbled into the shower, adjusted the knobs until warm water steamed the bathroom, and showered. No, I will not describe specifics. Most of you can envision it just fine without help. Finish, dry myself off, brush teeth, insert contacts, and get changed into my suit. This is how a professional starts his day. Heaven only knows why I'm doing this.

The professionalism course was slated to start at half past eight. This did not mean it would start on time. These things never do; for all their attempts at organization and promptness, legal meetings tend to run at least five minutes late. Can I explain it? No. All I can do is show up when they tell me to, and zone out.

The hook-like worry that kept fishing me out of sleep was a dead car battery. The night previous, I had trouble getting the ignition to turn over, and feared that the battery might be ready to give out. Of course, as I write this a week later, that battery still powers the Lady Surfer, despite the daily need to attend work being so much more important. As I tightened my gunmetal grey tie around my neck for the sixth time (half-Windsor knots are not my friend), I kept looking outside to Lady Surfer. (She was re-dubbed after I found out naming it Silver Surfer implied masculinity, and you are supposed to name cars after females. Why? I don't know. Sure, there's some sort of rudimentary return-to-the-womb argument you could make, or some psychosocial arguments on the injustices visited upon women by men in everything we do. Or, you could say "Because," and you would probably be just as correct.)

Pockets crammed full of Nutrigrain bars, I tightened my shoelaces and headed outside. Everything slowed down, like drifting through mineral oil. Images left wavy afterimages, the frigid morning air muted every color. Even Lady Surfer felt unreal when I unlocked the door, sat down, and turned the ignition. Of course, it started up without a hitch. It always does, except when it doesn't.

I leave around seven. There is a good possibility I may have fallen asleep after five, before I woke up for real, and just do not recall. There is also a good possibility that I do not want to pay the Maryland State Bar Association sixty-five dollars. Also a good possibility I am exhausted and driving on auto-pilot. Also, that I will choose the wrong auto-pilot schema and end up anywhere but Baltimore. That I am not the only car on the road surprises me. It should not, traffic continues whether I am or am not there. It does not require my validation.

I take Ninety-Five North to Baltimore, get off at exit fifty-three towards downtown, and park about a block away from the Baltimore Convention Center, the exciting locale where we will spend five hours learning how to be professionals. If we had not learned it by now, a five-hour class certainly will not teach us what we need to know. Consider this: if you are already versed in the ways of professionalism, the class wastes your time. It is akin to the preacher preaching to the congregation, when those absentees are the ones that would most benefit from the message. If you have crafted a master plan to cheat the system, embezzle from your clients, treat your compatriots as inferiors, and generally contravene the moral requirements that we all hope are implied in being a lawyer, how will a five-hour course move you? We numbered about one thousand strong that Saturday. Could even five of our cohort want to be professionals, yet not already learned the thrust of the day's simplistic kindergarten messages?

Now half past seven, I am half past pissed off. They are oh-so-graciously providing us with coffee and tea and donuts, but the cynic in me wonders if we have to pay for it. I stumble off, my fingers starting to crack and freeze in the cold, looking for an open food establishment. I find a Dunkin Donuts, briefly toy with going to the walk-up window, and decide to just go inside, get my bagel sandwich.

I promised to meet C.S. at eight, so we would not have to suffer through the day alone. Pain shared is pain doubled, so the saying should go. I munch on the bagel. That the cooking process could leach taste out of such diverse ingredients as bacon, eggs, and american cheese, and leave naught, save the dull, pasty flavors of neutral cardboard, shocked me. Yes, the ingredients did burn my tongue, so I knew at some point it might have been full of taste. Now, not so much.

At this point, I watch people enter the center. There is also a gymnastics exhibition this morning. It is easy to tell the groups apart. Those coming for the professionalism course are dressed to the hilt, carrying expensive suitcases and satchels and thick legal texts. Those for the gymnastics exhibition, young girls and their mothers and coaches dressed in warm up suits. A Venn Diagram showing the members of these two groups would overlap at a slice thin enough to pass through a needle's eye. I would like to meet said overlap; that might be hot.

C.S. arrives around ten minutes after eight. I marvel at his fortitude; he has trudged for twenty minutes in the arctic chill garbed only in his suit. We register, sign our names, and go into the main conference room. Before the dais up front, our kind hosts set up enough long tables to seat everyone, perhaps ten rows worth, eight or nine tables across. Beautiful thick white tablecloths drape each table, which leads me to wonder just how plywoody the tables were. After selecting seats, we go to the food aisle. They've erected several coffee services. Beneath each spigot is a small plate covered with coffee beans. I ask C.S. if we're expected to let the coffee run over the beans, then hold our cups below the plates and catch it as we might catch a waterfall. Both of us are dumbfounded at this little sign of gratuity and excess. Since the bagel threatens to tear its way out directly through my navel, I pick up three navel oranges, in case the opportunity to a) juggle, or b) peg someone in the head, presents itself. Yes, these thoughts are about as unprofessional as you get. Yes, I am about as unprofessional as I can get.

Angelic Remembrance

People ask why I limp. I tell them it's none of their concern. That’s enough to stop most people from asking further. Still, there are those ignorant few that can't stand their ignorance. They've got to know. My next statement goes along these lines: "You know how when you clap, an angel gets its wings? I limp because I killed an angel."

Once, I was walking with my mother, my chubby hand raised to grasp her dry, steady seamstress hand. I didn’t really know then that she sewed. I just knew the only thing I ever had to shop for, clothing-wise, were shoes and hats, and that was fine with me. Actually, I think that’s why we were going out that day, to get me a new pair of shoes. Had to be, I started limping after that day. Although, there were other reasons for it.

It must have been Harbor Street. There was so much traffic, and the pedestrians crowded onto the sidewalks, a thick briar patch of overcoats and caps that entrapped you, but still kept you moving, very slowly. Mom held my hand tight, just to the point of it starting to hurt. I tried to wriggle my now-white fingers free, but she just wouldn’t let go. Then, she stopped walking, but I kept going a few more steps. I looked back, and she just had this look on her face. Her mouth guppy-gaped, eyes fixed on something past the sky-high group of jackets. Like a basket of apples, she swung me into her arms, held me tight, turned my head in the opposite direction as she backed us towards the street. Her heart pounded so fast, it felt like she’d trapped a hummingbird beneath her coat. The cars had also stopped, and not because of traffic lights. A few of those drivers, passengers too, they all shared my mom’s stupefied look.

What she didn’t realize was that I could see in some of the car and windows a warped reflection. The indistinct sun hung overhead, casting a subtle glow over everything. Tens of misaligned images reflected in the windows and mirrors, all at different angles. Most of them just showed me the backs of people on the street. A tantalizing few hinted at something more alluring, though I didn’t know then what those giant sleep-black feathers portended.

Even though I was five or six, I was still just a fussy baby. I squirmed and struggled in mom’s grasp, trying to gain purchase against her shoulder to spin around. Her thin arms usually grappled with spindles and jammed sewing machines; I was little more than a fidgety annoyance she would have none of. Mom took another step back, and her feet balanced half over the curb. Somehow, she’d managed to stand at the gap between two parked cars, and I thought she was going to start running soon, but she didn’t. I kept shifting.

All you have to do to realize I was a big kid is look at my fingers. I’ll never be a small guy, and that’s fine. At the same time, I’ve shed a lot of weight, and with it, a lot of insecurity. Still, I hate showing people my hands, or holding peoples’ hands. It feels like, when Jenny runs her fingers over mine, she’s lingering on the pudge, thinking about what a “cute kid” I must have been. Looking at me, looking in my eyes, and envisioning a fatter version of me. What if.

What if things were different? I hate that game, but let's play for a little while. There was a parking meter to my left, and my right leg swung loose while I sat in the crook of her arm. Let's say I didn't kick off of that meter. Suppose I hadn't pushed with both my arms against my mother. If she wasn't backing up, if you change any detail, would that have been enough to throw her into the street? It was my foot, my fault, my foot-fault. Trouble is, we don't get a second serve.

When she landed, the crack sounded like the world rent in two. Now that I look back, maybe it really did. It almost hurts more now than it did then. Back then, all I knew was that I broke my foot. Today, I realize that set in motion the destruction of a people. I looked around, fire streaking through my poor foot. Mom started undoing the shoelace, her fingers unweaving the chunky knots my stubby fingers barely laced together. Those giant child crocodile tears streamed down my face, and everything went blurry, but I looked back into the sidewalk, at all the faces looking back at me. Most of them, men and women bundled tight, also doing their shopping, their day ruined. Two of them had to be policemen performing their civic duty. Dark uniforms, blue caps, and they were leading the winged man by the hand. He happened to be walking past at that moment, and people drew their own conclusions.

Him. Alison Gerald Murphy. Yeah, I was there. I couldn’t really see his face then, but I’ve seen the pictures now. Well, the pictures after his arrest. Objective viewpoint, he looked pitiful. Thinning black hair, a once-wide face losing its fat stores, now starting to sag like a pitbull. A thick nose, almost clownishly red, blood vessels boiled to the surface. Eagle-wide eyes, pale grey. Tattered clothing that he seemed to wear only because no one else could bear to take it. The only things that saved him from being consigned to historical irrelevance were those magnificent dark angel’s wings.

Even now, I can see how they ruffled, how each feather gleamed, despite his tattered coat and unwashed form, despite the lack of sunlight. Those sharp feathers seemed to catch every last bolt of sunshine and throw it back into the world with ten times the intensity. They looked like they could carve thick wedges from clouds, and the cloudlets would tumble downwards, falling cotton balls. Despite the elephant-thick manacles banded around the base of his wings, Alison looked innocent. He was innocent, at least where I was concerned.

A man stepped out from the crowd, took me and Mom into the street, through the tangled traffic, around the block, away from the event. Mom pressed my head into her breast, her hand muffling any sounds from the outside world. Still, I heard three things as we went away. The hummingbird trapped beneath mom’s coat. My high-pitched screams. Al’s last words: “No, please, mercy,” and a scream, fading as simply as a forgotten dream. Too bad I can’t forget him that easily. Every time I stumble when I get out of the car, or walking up the stairs, or dancing, I remember how easy it was to kill an angel.

***

I'm not enamored with the title, but felt I should put something down. Ideally this would lead into a longer interlude concerning how our narrator's life continued to intersect with the wild, soaring path these angels also took. Really, it's just a story about hating those different from you, and we've got so many historical instances, you can tell where this is all going.

As of late, I've been starting and stopping multiple short stories, and editing intermittently (both my own work and the more academic work of others). The net result is that there's very little publishable (postable?) work. Since I basically get one shot at you reading what I write, I'd rather polish it a bit than just slap up whatever. For now, we're going to aim for a weekly posting during Sunday Night (Football).

Train Wreck

Serial novelty made for a one-time flirtation. However, as people take more and more from me, I learn that they still, despite trying, cannot take my writing from me. Law school tried their damnedest and failed.

The big reason I switched to fiction is because writing about the events in my life would only serve to incriminate myself to those around me. So, am I going to start back up with the fiction? Maybe, depends on if I can turn off the football game or not.

Towards the end, I think I started doing this for other people, absolutely the wrong thing. There are some things you need to do for yourself; for example, I should never have agreed to go to law school. That was not a choice I should have made. Here I carve out my little spot on the internet, for what it is worth. I probably will not tell anyone that I made my return to Writ. Instead, I will just update now and again, and we will go from there.

ReTOOLing

I had been writing ahead so I wouldn't get caught in the jam I'm in now, of falling behind. Chapter 4 was a good ways in when I realized I hated where I'd taken it. I think the better option will be to skip what I would have talked about in Chapter 4, save a brief mention or two in new Chapter 4. The problem is, when I think about what I was doing, it was quite tedious, and really didn't need a full chapter to describe how they got to the hospital. The few key revelations that would have resulted can be taken care of in new Chapter 4 through the brief mentions. Updates will continue next week, and we'll address outlining, finals and bar exam review as they come. If you're still checking, thanks for your patience.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 18: At the End of the Day

Recapitulation: Barry has played on the fears of an old man to help him fill up a grave. Jenna is meanwhile incapacitated with a concussion.

***

They scooped the hole closed just as the sun resembled an inverted fish bowl, bottom seventh still obscured by the gentle horizon. Barry moved the grass divots by hand into place, fitting them with the care and precision of a Mayan wallbuilder. He could not have slipped a knife between the divots. Not that he ever carried a knife.

Barry and the old man sank to the floor. Jenna wandered over. She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “Now that you guys are done, I have to ask, what happened, and why is he clutching his chest?”

Barry looked up from his cross-legged rest. He’d noticed somehow the old man’s grunting had taken on a more anxious tone, yet chalked it up to the hopes he wouldn’t die. Now, his left arm stuck out straight, his fingernails drawing blood from his palm. His right arm clawed at the source of the pain, as if ready to rip through the outer layers of clothing and skin to get to the rib cage, and then the heart, ready to rip it out and perhaps even eat it.

As it stood, Jenna couldn’t remember more than ten seconds into the immediate past. The old man’s body rebelled against his will to live. He had on him a modern treasure map in the form of a hidden will and the old man’s wallet, which he might have stolen. The old man still feared that Barry would kill him. He was covered in filth, as was Jenna, whose head ceased its constant outpouring of blood. The sunrise exposed them for all their illegal glory, casting a bold honey glow across their tired faces. Soon the workers would return and discover them. He needed a nap or fifteen, as the past twenty-four hours presented little more than hard labor and harder stress on him. And, he still couldn’t drive a stick shift, their sole means of transportation and getaway.

The Volvo could fit two of them, and the shovels, or all three of them, and they’d have to leave the shovels behind. Or, Barry could attempt to drive away by himself and crash. Then it became a matter of what to take, among the shovels, Jenna, and the old man.

He groaned. She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “What happened? Why are you just sitting there? Answer me.” Her insistence speared through him like bolt lightning. They really were running out of time.

The shovels treated him well, like old dogs unable to hunt, but still able to rush to him when he came home. He’d purchased them after his first day of work at Millken Park. Though one saw more use than the other, they remained his most stolid compatriots. Yes, the conversation lacked, and sometimes they were cold to the touch, but they’d never treated him wrong.

The old man, he didn’t deserve this gripping fate. This morning, probably just like every other morning, he’d trundle down to the graveyard, visit his wife, or his child, or a friend, maybe even his own grave. He just experienced the bad fortune to meet Barry and Jenna, and be placed in mortal fear for his own life. Without Barry, the old man would never have suffered this heart attack, or suffered him. He had to help.

Jenna, his would-be wife, his true annoyance, and he’d pulled her into a grave and given her a concussion. Then again, she’d made him accessory to grave robbery. Hell, he was an accomplice. If there was another person, and now there was, he might even be a conspirator. Oh god, she’d made him a conspirator for grave robbery. How bad would that sentencing be, would he even make it out of prison alive? Better to leave her here, she’d recover eventually. Might not even remember the promises he made to let her live in his apartment, promises now erased by the constant static rushing her head.

How hard would it be to drive away? Then it hit him. He needed her to tell him how to drive, unless.

“Can you drive a manual transmission?”

“I’m dying, get me help, please.”

Barry could carry two out of the three at any one time, and it was probably for the best that he didn’t leave the shovels where they would be linked back to him. Why did Jenna have to packrat her car and keep it chock full of useless crap? Damn.

He looked at Jenna. “I’m going to take a real quick nap. Wake me up in five minutes.”

“Arrgh,” stated the old man.

“Shut up or I’m leaving you here.” He passed out on the cool grass, oblivious to the truth that Jenna would forget to wake him in thirty seconds.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 17: Concussion.

Recapitulation: Barry has knocked Jenna unconscious by pulling her headfirst into Gertrude Wilborough’s grave. In the process of getting them out, an old man sees them. Barry attempts to force the man’s will to his own, not realizing that this particular man was little better than a sick child.

***

The well-worn wallet demonstrated deep depressions outlining a series of credit cards cascading downward. Barry imagined the old man’s face felt just like this dead cow skin. Brown as the dirt below. He slid this into his back pocket, along with the papers already stuffed in there. Lowered himself into the coffin, threw the shovel out, and hefted it back out. They continued their grimy work. The caked dirt on Barry’s face developed shiny ruts as sweat droplets gathered up the soil on its way down his face.

Around this time, Jenna woke up and stumbled over to their anti-archaeological dig. Her drunken weaving made Barry dizzy.

“What happened?” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation.

The old man took a step back, then dropped his shovel on the firm ground. “You’re not dead.”

“Neither are you, maybe we should wait a little longer. What happened?” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation.

“You fell on your head pretty bad. Go sit down. And you, pick that shovel up and keep shoveling.” Barry’s arms scorched from within. The shovel handle pricked at his fingers. They threatened to straighten out with each passing second. Holding the shovel got almost as bad as filling the hole.

“Hey, what happened?” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation.

Barry looked at her. “You didn’t hear me just now?”

“I heard you just now.” Jenna looked around, processing the graveyard. “Who’s he?”

“One question at a time. You fell down, hit your head. Go sit down over there.” He brandished the shovel towards a solid gravestone.

“Ok.” She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. Jenna weaved through to the gravestone, spun in a tight circle as if caught in a stirred drink, then slumped to the ground. A few seconds later, she wobbled back to Barry on her hands and knees. “I might have already asked this, but what happened?”

“You hit your head. I think you might have a concussion.”

She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “Please, I didn’t hit my head, what are you talking about. What happened? Who’s he?”

This day just kept getting better and better.

Barry set the shovel down as he would a child, then walked over to Jenna. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and walked her back to the grave. “Listen, you fell on your head when we were trying to finish the job, alright? I’ll take you to the hospital, but first me and him have to fill the hole back up. So, can you wait here and just sit here for another half hour or so? Remember that one thing, just wait right here.”

She nodded back at him, staring hard at him, her eyes slitted. Her mind was coated in teflon at this point, nothing he said would stick. “Who’s he?”

“Just a helper. Now, please, just wait here, and don’t do anything, don’t wander away, just sit her quietly, alright?”

“Will you tell me what happened?”

“I will tell you what happened later, alright? I’ve got to finish this.”

“Alright.” She sat down, her back to the gravestone, staring up at the sky. Barry walked back to Ms. Wilborough’s resting place and started shoveling. A few seconds later, Jenna popped up behind him. Barry turned around. She held her hand to her head, as if she could push out the swirling sensation. “What happened?”

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 16: It Pours

Recapitulation: Barry and Jenna managed to steal their prizes from Gertrude Wilborough’s dead body, but in the process Barry managed to knock out Jenna. While extricating the two of them from the grave, an elderly man has come upon them, and is willing to do whatever it takes to leave under his own power.

***

He didn’t want to do this, but there wasn’t much he could do. Jenna might have had some brain damage in addition to whatever residual injury made her act the way she did. Barry knew exhaustion as he would a lover, panting and wheezing, arms wrapped around it, needing to lie down and go to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to shovel the dirt in by himself in an hour or two, not by himself.

“Come here.” He tried to speak the words with malice, but came off sounding weak. The old man still approached, his Hush Puppies scraping on the grass. Barry wiped the sweat and dirt from his face, then stopped, his forearm still pressed against his nose. That grime might be the only thing keeping the old man from a positive identification. Barry smeared his hand on his coveralls, then rewiped with his left hand, obscuring his true self even more.

“Pick up the shovel.” Barry’s voice wept into the high register, more suited to a castrati in one of Mr. Waller’s older records. The old man trudged to the shovel, still planted in the mound, picked it up.

“Start filling that hole.” The man moved without using his joints, every gesture straight armed, straight legged, straight torsoed. Scoop, turn, empty, turn, scoop, turn, empty. Barry nodded. He walked over and knelt down before Jenna before raising her up in his arms. She slumped through the gaps like a sleeping cat, but remained borne. The old man gasped, but said nothing. Barry took her a bit removed from Ms. Wilborough’s grave, off to Larry Javaad (1958-1994). Laid her down so that she at least wouldn’t have to endure a pelting from random dirt. Stumbled back to the grave and started helping. The old man held Barry’s shovel, Ol’ Rusty. This reserve felt foreign in his hands, too smooth and too clean, too cold. Still, what choice did he have?

Now they raced their exhaustion. Barry should have taken a nap. The old man should have not thought fond thoughts of whomever he was here to visit. The only situation they would have wheezed harder in would be a near vacuum, trying to extract the last particles of breathable air.

“What, what are you going to do to me?”

The only response Barry gave was the continued huffing and shoveling.

“I won’t tell anyone about this, really. I’m old, I don’t have much time. Please, please just let me have what little time I have left.” At this, he dropped the shovel, fell to his knees crying. “Please have mercy on me, please.” The shovel teetered on the edge of the grave before spilling inward.

Damn. “All you had to do was keep on digging and you were going to be fine. Now look at what you’ve done.” Barry threw down the shovel. “Look at what you’re going to have to make me do.”

“No, please.”

“Go get it.”

“What?”

“Get the shovel. I’ll wait right here.”

The old man, his eyes redder than the sunrise stared into the pit. “How do I know you won’t bury me down there? You dropped that shovel in there on purpose.”

“You dropped it, you get it.”

“No, no. Please.” He fell on his face, mumbling incoherent supplications to Barry.

“Fine. I’m going to go down there to get that shovel. When I come back up, if you’re not here, I’m going to hunt you down and slit your throat.” Then he thought for a second. “Give me your wallet.”

“What?”

“Call it insurance.”

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 15: When It Rains

Recapitulation: Slapstick abounds with exhaustion. After exhuming Gertrude Wilborough’s grave, they’ve unearthed several treasures, including a possible last will which may change Ms. Wilborough’s estate distribution. In the process, Barry has gotten trapped in the hole, and after making a compromise to get out, Jenna has fallen in with him after he pulled on her hand far too hard.

***

For as long as they’d known each other, all these long hours, it seemed like they’d been pulling each other down, scrabbling over each other to get to the top of their two-person heap. Once again, the subtle tracings sketching out their life stories laid some subtle irony at their feet. Barry rubbed his lower back, now aflame with pain, and looked over to a quiet-for-once Jenna, blood oozing from her temple. Somewhere within, he wondered if this all happened quite different in another universe.

Even knocked out, her hair exuded signs of a life independent of the body they became attached to. It may have been more an effect of the scattered dirt bed she’d come to rest on, it might have been how, despite the shadows filling the hole, each strand delineated itself. The bright blood, seeping forward, colored everything in its path a duller hue of the incipient sunrise above them.

Always forgetful of just how light she was, Barry scooped her into his arms, then pressed her body above his head, tipping her forward onto the ground above. A simple euphoria flooded his body, much as harsh exhaustion threaded his musculature. Stepping to the other side of the grave, Barry traded up, passing through the air in order to get himself to a more tenable position. He rolled onto his back, right arm draped over his chest, left arm still dangling into the pit. Wheezed, wheezed, wheezed. What a race.

His vision gained an unfocused quality. The golden-red sun bled indistinct, its edges blurring into a vague arc, the blue-black sky beyond finishing the cold irradiated burst. a few clouds stranded through this smooth color schema, little more than what might have been early-onset cataracts cottoning his eyeballs. His head lolled, and broad basic colors gave way to cold slate and granite slabs peppering the faded piney green grass. An inch from his face, sharper grass extruded from the ground, and Barry counted the uniform veins striping the length of each blade. Somewhere in the distance, a large blob, white and tan and brown and large and filled with so many color gradations it stood out for its uniqueness, looked very out of place. It took Barry a few efforts to focus in on the elderly man holding a flower bouquet, and an additional try to recognize the utter lack of movement at all, signifying what?

He turned his head the other way, saw the pile of dirt, the fresh grave, the unconscious woman bleeding out from her heard. Turned back to the old man. Turned back to Jenna. Even if she was in any shape to explain this, she wouldn’t have explained this. No, it fell to him to assuage this man’s fears, explain that he wasn’t a murderer. He loved mornings.

Barry edged into a semi-sitting position much more appropriate for a chaise lounge than an exposition. He turned to the old man, still frozen in a temporal amber, preserved in the scene that he drew his own conclusion for. “Everything’s okay, there’s a perfect explanation for all this.” He beckoned across the field, across the dirt heap and the half-dead woman and the open grave. “There’s no perfect explanation for all this. But I have an explanation for you, if you’ll just give me a chance.” In the old man’s shoes, Barry would have worn off the soles gunning for the nearest constable.

“Don’t hurt me, please. I’m not seeing anything, there is nothing to see here.” The old man raised the flowers before his face.

Barry nodded. “Well, yes, this is true, this is all completely ordinary, everyday run-of-the-mill business.” He sighed.

“I’ll do whatever you want.”

The phrase, fraught with potential, yet extended with such desperation, didn’t register in Barry’s mind for a few seconds. He’d just been in the old man’s position. Now it was time to take some advantage of the situation.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 14: Getting Out of a Well

April 1 fell on a Saturday this year, and I do not update during the weekendYou’ll note that “Chapter 4, Part 1” corresponds quite well to 4/1 (April 1), and “oil or flaps” is an anagram of April Fool’s. In addition, by not putting “Act 1” in the title, I hope at least some of you were tipped off as to the true nature of my post.

***

Recapitulation: The contents of Gertrude Wilborough’s grave included more than mere jewelry. Barry and Jenna also discovered a “Last Will and Testement,” perhaps her final will, which could change the entire distribution of her estate. As Barry peruses the document, Jenna sneaks out of the grave and starts throwing dirt in on Barry. Trapped, he takes a few seconds to reach out and touch the face of the woman whose funeral he first attended.

***

We learn lessons best via repetition, which is part of why life’s simple lessons are so painful to learn. Only the lucky few understand it the first time, while the mass of people are forced to make mistakes again and again until they get it right. Barry knew that with enough time and effort, he could change Jenna. It was just the process that would kill him. Another dirt clod whacked him in the face. He spit out black chunks and what was either a worm or a rootlet, thin and stringy and wriggling past his lips.

Barry shut the casket and stood up on the lower half. Jenna planted the shovel deep into the pile, ready to fling another pile into the hole. Her arms shook under the strain, her knees quivered. He looked down at his shaky hands. Like two prizefighters in the twelfth round, they both continued on, neither sure of what they were doing it for, only knowing that there were a few minutes left before they could stop.

He pushed up on the ground, hefted his body up from the edge of the grave, and met with facefull of the brown stuff. Back down he went. Jenna heaved with a master shoveler’s fury.

“You going to bury me down here? You think you can get away with it?”

Another rain of dirt. He could hear her puffing from above. She couldn’t keep this up for much longer. Barry nestled up against the side. He’d have to time this just right.

Jenna tossed another shovelful into the hole. Barry leapt up and used his momentum to carry himself up. Jenna, still at the edge of the hole, put her foot out and kicked his face, shoving him back down. The casket creaked beneath the sudden jolt, but remained intact.

He recalled an old puzzle, concerning a frog stuck in a well twenty feet deep. Every day he would climb three feet up the side, every night he would slide back down two feet. How many days would it take him to get out? The obvious answer is twenty days, one foot of progress a day. The right answer is eighteen days. Once the frog hits twenty feet, it can escape and not fall back down two feet. The lesson? Frogs can cling to walls. The important lesson? Always think through a problem, don’t assume the immediate answer is the best answer.

The sky fell some more. Barry wanted out of the hole, so he kept trying to force his way out, but Jenna kept shoving him back in. The better way to do it would be to have Jenna help him out. Jenna was pissed at him. Furious even. He had to give her something she wanted. Otherwise, they would get caught. There wasn’t much time, and they would need every harsh second to fill the grave.

“Move in with me.” Why did he say that? The words tasted sour in his mouth.

“I already live with you.”

“I mean for good. Not just for right now. You can keep running your jobs and you don’t have to live out of your car. Move your stuff into my apartment.”

He heard a faint metal sound, like a shovel blade spiked into the ground. “Not good enough.”

A start, but he needed more. What more could she want? What more would she want? And it hit him, living out of a car, moving from place to place, working alone. Always taunting him, always trying to keep him at arm distance, or trying to draw him in, he wasn’t sure. Either way, he knew what she wanted.

“I’ll be your partner, I’ll be your subordinate, I’ll help you, just please, help me out and let’s fill this hole and get home.”

Pavlovian conditioning made him close his eyes. A quiet throat clearing made him open them. Jenna crouched by the edge, her hand outstretched, the oversized emerald ring keeping her pinky and middle finger from touching her ring finger. He reached out and she yanked her head back.

“I keep the bed?”

He nodded and grabbed her hand. Barry pulled himself up, or so he thought, until he realized that her shaky hand was moving downward. With his simple tug, Barry dragged Jenna over the edge. He fell down and broke his crown, and she came tumbling after.

Chapter 4, Part 1: oil or flaps

Recapitulation: The contents of Gertrude Wilborough’s grave included more than mere jewelry. Barry and Jenna also discovered a “Last Will and Testement,” perhaps her final will, which could change the entire distribution of her estate. As Barry peruses the document, Jenna sneaks out of the grave and starts throwing dirt in on Barry. Trapped, he takes a few seconds to reach out and touch the face of the woman whose funeral he first attended.

***

He grew weary of her attitude, her childishness, the way she blackmailed him. Tired of not working, tired of not getting paid, tired of having to get dirt dumped on him from above. Tired of it all. Barry had enough. Fury borne of frustration infused his muscles, his lungs, his heart. He snorted like a bull, the air flowing through him, generating more and more power. Dirt rained downward, but he didn’t feel it. Registered it only as unimportant information. Right now, the two things that mattered were the wall in front of him and the woman beyond.

He crouched down, far deeper than he normally would, and sprang to, catching the wall and hefting himself forward in one fluid motion. Like a dolphin, he sprang up from the ground, landed on his feet in a crouch. Jenna just stood there, the shovel in her hands shaking, little groundling droplets tipping from the pile on the shovel blade. Her mouth hung open, disbelief cramming it wide.

“How, how did you, how.” She just stared at him. “How?”

Barry closed the gap between them and wrenched the shovel from her hands. She cried out, so swift and final was his move. Barry smiled. The weight in his hands made him feel whole. That he was in power again made him feel whole. Made him feel holy even. At this moment, things had changed, and he could do no wrong here. He was in charge.

“You’re going to tell me how to drive that stick shift of yours, right now.”

“Huh?”

“Listen, wifey,” and he spat the word as if venom coated every letter, “you’re not the only person that can make stupid demands. You tell me how to drive that car of mine.”

“That Volvo’s mine.” Jenna’s defiant lip curled, but Barry saw right through it, saw Jenna for what she was, some punk little bitch.

“No, that car is mine now.” He crossed his arms, the shovel slanting diagonal across his body, the blade next to his ear. His feet planted should width apart, Barry now looked for all the world like an enforcer. Jenna cowered, backed up a step. She’d never seen him like this.

“Alright, here’s how you drive it.” For the next five minutes, she walked him through the basic mechanics of operating a manual transmission, the nuances involved with the clutch on this car, even how to back out of a parking space. She threw words out faster and faster, trying to give him the information, trying to push him away with her soft reedy breaths.

“Thanks dear.” Barry laughed. “As if I’d ever get married to someone like you. You screwed with the wrong man honey.” Quick as the weather, he whipped himself and the shovel into a batter’s stance. Jenna’s eyes popped out of her head, and her valiant effort to run worked for a second. Mid-stride, the blade flat shattered the side of her skull. On the follow-through, Jenna’s body carried into the air for a few feet, before smashing into a gravestone, upending over the top, slumping upside down into the ground.

He set into the dirt, collapsing the hole into itself, when Jenna groaned from behind the gravestone. Barry looked up at her, flat on her back, her dress hiked up around her thighs, a small revolver strapped to her leg. What a sneak, she had a gun all this time.

Barry peered to his right, then to his left. Still no one there. Perfect. With confident strides Barry met Jenna, still alive in the most clinical sense of the word. He reached down between her legs, pulled out the revolver. Thumbed the hammer, pressed the barrel against her temple, or what he thought was her temple; the crushed skull made finding landmarks hard.

“Good night Jenna.” He pulled the trigger. A quick report echoed through the graveyard, heralding Jenna’s transition from present tense to past tense. Blood, bone chips, skin, hair fanned out across the ground like a malfunctioning firework. Barry pocketed the snub-nose, then resumed shoveling the dirt back into the hole. Part of him wanted to just throw her in, but that would be too easy. As he took handfuls of dirt to mop up the human residue now cooling next to Jenna’s head, he thought about the possibilities, before deciding on the best choice: his own grave.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 13: Face-to-face Confrontation

Recapitulation: Though Barry is more physically suited to unearth a grave, he has tired of Jenna’s attitude, crushing her spirit and forcing her into digging. Through their combined efforts, they hit paydirt, only to discover a sheaf of papers which give them pause. With that, we hit the play button.

***

Barry raised the smooth papers to his face, close enough to kiss them, started reading. The faint light distinguished broad forms, not precise shapes, yet the oversized Gothic font confirmed they were looking at Gertrude Wilborough’s “Last Will and Testement.” He wondered if the spelling error would invalidate the entire thing. He also wondered what Jenna opened Ms. Wilborough’s bodice for.

“Necklaces and pendants jackass.” These Jenna brandished at Barry, a veritable host of precious metal and fine craftsmanship. Then, with a shrug, she looped them about her neck, hiding them beneath her blouse.

Now they needed time as a friend, needed her to descend down the stairs with the grace and posture of a princess. Instead, she stumbled on the second step, lost her balance and spun out of control down the steps. The brash red sun dialed the intensity up. Barry yawned. He kept reading the fine text, too small for even a child’s eyes to decipher. Page after page of it, but why was it buried with her? They would have to analyze it later. He stuffed the papers into his back pocket, much as if they were his working schedule, then pulled his way out of the grave. Rather, he attempted to, but a large clot of dirt smacked into his face. It carried him back into the grave like a claw from the depths of hell.

He came to rest staring at a stretched parchment face. Part of him knew that he needed out of this grave, that there were forces that would conspire to keep him trapped here until proper authorities would turn up. Part of him wanted to just go to sleep here, forget about the long night of digging. The greatest part of him had to reach out to her, understand her. No matter what else would happen, he had to find out.

Barry’s unsure fingers stroked Ms. Wilborough’s forehead. Cool, not icy, and dry, like a Siberian woman’s forehead might feel. Despite the post-mortem stretch, he still recognized where the crenulations traced across her brow. Moving down, the eyes behind those blank eyelids remained stiff and unforgiving. He pressed down and thought of marbles in a silk sack.

Another shovelful of dirt bombed down, splashing against his left arm. He stroked the loam away and continued his caress. The nose pressed in like a calculator button. There was no structure behind it. Somewhere in her life, all the cartilage had broken away. Was this a parlor trick that she demonstrated to scare the grandchildren and grandnephews and grandnieces? Had Hardy had to lick that nose, only to feel it give way?

Her cheeks were like chalkboards, an unnatural smoothness and basic frigidity giving him pause. They might have taken the face-lift too far, must have pinned her cheeks back to her spinal cord. Her wax-coated lips crackled a bit beneath his touch, their inferior wax starting to disintegrate. Though it wouldn’t disappear for a few more days, this was the first sign of decay, the first indication that the mortician’s efforts would not stave away the inevitable. His fingers traced through the bleached stubble on her chin, so fine it might have been peach fuzz.

Another series of dirt pellets riddled him. He would not be buried in this fashion, alive, oh no. He would make sure Jenna learned a lesson.

Act 1, Chapter 3, Part 12: Coercion

Recapitulation: Sometimes, when you want to rob a grave, you have to do it the old fashioned way. Barry and Jenna have found their way to Gertrude Wilborough’s grave at night, and proceed to dig it up. However, they’ve come to an impasse as to which of them will do the actual work.

***

Being buried alive constitutes one of the most traumatic experiences to most humans, indeed most living creatures that do not burrow underground. Even more frustrating is the tantalizing proposition that freedom is but two hundred and thirty pounds away. The woman, trapped beneath the hulk of a man, writhes beneath him, as much to release her legs from the dirt and to gain unhindered access to fresh air as to get out from beneath the overbearing weight of the man.

For his part, he moves the dirt with the dispassionate motions befitting a sloth. At this rate, he could move a mountain, but it would take years. Nonetheless, he has time, as well as a superior position to the woman. The manufacturers constructed their caskets well; the casket’s integrity resisted the additional weight of two people wrestling atop it. In the alternative, the casket collapsed while the legitimate diggers heaped their dirt atop the casket, shifting the dirt downward into a more permanent position.

They have another breathless conversation, this time with the man in the dominant position, the woman’s lungs compressed flat. His terms brook no compromise, she will dig half the dirt, he will dig the other half. They will loot the corpse, replace the dirt, and leave this place. He will wait out his three and a half weeks until his reinstatement, she will go off and do whatever the hell she wants. Unwilling to die from asphyxiation, she assents to the new plan.

Repetition is the watchword by which they execute their duty. The shovel blade pierces the earth, the shovel blade removes some of the earth, the shovel blade dumps the dirt onto the pile. Given enough time, and a sufficient protection system, and a means by which to bypass the crushing gravity at the center of the earth, these two could dig through the earth to the other side. Of course, their petty bickering has robbed them of the needed time, and now they must grapple with the oncoming sunrise.

He jumps into the hole, now up to his waist, and commences helping. She moves for the edge, but he grabs her by her hair and drags her back down. Together they orchestrate a deep enough hole, and clack their shovels against the coffin. Well done, well done. She ducks down to fiddle with the lid, while he hefts himself off of the casket in order to allow her more room to unlock the lid. The man sits with his legs dangling over the edge, hands holding on. There is some more movement, and she pops up holding a sheaf of papers. The man takes the sheaf, flips through them, assimilating the information. As the sun has now started to rise, and the graveyard is cast into soft focus, we shall move in closer for a more detailed examination of these mysterious papers.