Ashleigh Hanley

Buried a Life

I hear a noise. I drop to the ground. A plume of dust kicks up as my beer belly hits the dirt. I’m in the middle of North Coast bushland at least an hour trudge in all directions. There shouldn’t be anybody here. That’s why I chose here. The dust settles on my sweaty forehead as I army crawl up a small termite mound to get a better angle at where the noise came from. In the clearing I see a man, wearing a collared shirt and trousers, in the final stages of planting a tree. He plunges the shovel into the dirt making the same noise that had just startled me. My heaving breath disturbs the loose dirt near my mouth. Don’t breathe in the dust. Even the cicadas won’t drown out a cough.