Recapitulation: Jenna’s blatant daytime tactics to sneak out the wealth of riches from Gertrude Wilborough’s coffin are only partly successful. To compensate for his sudden fears of being discovered, Barry proposes a more covert operation at night, using much more blunt methods of theft.
They set aside the plots of grass like children in a nursery, side by side, lowered gently onto the earth, out of sight, but never far from their mind. As she continues to lean on her shovel and oversee the unearthing process, he continues to shovel deep down, tossing aside each shovelful of dirt into an increasing mound, burrowing down deeper. Once the mound reaches waist-high, the man throws down his shovel, gesticulates at the woman, waving his fingers and pointing back down at the dirt. Making a grand gesture, slow exaggerated movements dominating her posture, she steps to the edge of the grave, where he just stood, and continues the growing hole.
She manages but four repetitions of the basic action before letting the shovel go. It tumbles into the rut. The woman takes a few steps away and sits down against the back of the headstone, stretching her arms out and taking a rest. The man throws his shovel down onto the pile, audible even at this distance, a slight clump. He walks around the grave, grabs her bird-like wrist, and yanks her to her feet. She yells out of surprise, moreso than pain.
The gist of their conversation revolves around his opinion that she does little, always letting things happen around her while she reacts and hodgepodges together some possible solution. She feels that he does too much, that by regimenting every detail and attempting to anticipate every last moment, he ruins the spontaneity and wonder of life. Underlying it all, someone has to exhume Ms. Wilborough’s grave, and neither of them would take that step tonight.
You can watch the moon move more than either of them. Close your left eye and just wait, lining up the moon with a stationary point on the earth, the two of them. Wait and see which will move more over the next hour. Go ahead and keep waiting.
***
You see? We maintain the status quo between the two of them, yet the moon has carved further in its lonely arc, and still she sits against the gravestone, and still he lies in the rut that the two have created, his feet nearest Ms. Wilborough’s head, his head perhaps five and a half feet above Ms. Wilborough’s bare feet. Both do their damnedest to focus their attention anywhere but upon each other, and both are forced to fixate upon the only thing that offers any interest: the moon. The three-quarters full moon, pockmarked and pale yellow, orbiting much faster than either could detect from the graveyard. That moon, looking down on their incomplete venture, faux-frowning upon their work.
You can find it obvious that neither one will move unless the other changes their mind. You can also determine that neither will change their mind. The man realizes this, realizes this too well, knows that she responds to impulse more than thought out arguments. Now, impulse and reaction must combine to impel a new course of action. He rises from the grave, grabs those bird-like wrists again, lifts her up. She is dead weight, and dangles so, until he throws her down face-first into the pit they, he, has dug.
Before she can move, he lays on her back cross-wise, careful not to break it by exerting his full force, but keeping her pinned. From this position, he can reach out to the dirt pile, and his shovel. While his feet spread out and his left arm keep her alive, his right hand starts to move dirt from the pile onto her legs. She squirms, she struggles, she spasms. He continues the pseudo-entombment, every so often layering dirt upon her beautiful hair, soon indistinguishable from the loam he applies to her.
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