The Dig

This is what’s left of home. A few studs burnt almost to soot but too stubborn to fall. A chimney at the back of the house somehow still standing after years of scorch and exposure. Melted appliances and broken knickknacks. I promised myself I’d never come back here. If I never saw it like this then it was like it still existed out there somewhere. Just the way we left it. Untouched by all the fire and time. Like we were all still inside laughing together. Safe. Sound. Innocent. Unaware of what would happen. Before the end of everything.

But I suppose coming back was always an inevitability. I left too much in these ashes to stay gone forever. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been gone really. There are no calendars or seasons to keep track of the years. No clear sky to track moon cycles or star positions. Just scrambling for whatever semblance of food is left and choking on the ash in between. You start measuring time in suffering and that’s never-ending.

I wish I could say the rumors of cannibalism were just rumors, but they’re not. The most shocking part about all that isn’t that people were capable of doing it, but just how fast they got capable. The grocery stores had hardly been emptied a week before that began. We had gone from refugees looking out for one another to being hunted in a matter of a few days. Just meat commodities on the run. Someone’s meal to prolong their misery.

Leaving the countryside is leaving hope. The country is where some animals still manage to survive despite everything. If you’re lucky, you can eat a rat or even some cockroaches once every day or two. The country is safety from people in large numbers. You can group up but with no more than a few people. Any more than that and odds are someone there sees you as food. I haven’t been in a group since the beginning, and I’ll keep it that way.

I came back to the city, to this place I called home, to dig. There’s no pageantry in delay, so I’ll start where I feel like I’ll find it. The place it would have certainly ended up when the fires got close. The rain, if you can call it that, has turned all this soot from the remains of the house into a clay-like mud that’s hardened. Walking through the front door. The place my wife would see me off to work, and my daughter would run to greet me when I got home. Past where the dining room table stood. There’s still some remnant of the chandelier half-buried in this dark new earth born from my home.

If I had to guess, and I do, I think it will be in the back of the house. That was our bedroom, so it makes sense that I’d find it there. I step over a mound of rubble and through what used to be the bedroom door. This is the place we had late-night conversations that stretched into the morning. Where we’d let our daughter have movie nights with popcorn and giggles. This was the place I used to rest. Imagine that. Laying your head down on a pillow. Covered up. Only worrying about the trivial things that no one has the luxury to even remember anymore. We took all that for granted. I know I did.

I can see the box springs from our bed. Collapsed, rusted, and peeking out of scorched earth. This is where it should be. With no walls to the outside world to hide me, I’ve probably only got a few minutes for this. Stooping down to pull at the springs, but they’re snapping like twigs. I’ve got to get these out of the way but they’re too brittle to lift the frame. The fires raged through these neighborhoods in a matter of minutes and swallowed up the homes like matchsticks in a furnace. The souls inside burned up with them. Just gone. Like they never existed.

Using my knife to try to cut out the rectangle frame of this box spring. I’m hoping it’s under this, and I’m hoping it’s not at the same time. The mud is thick and black and unforgiving. It’s buried everything. The frame is coming loose as I lift it and pry it from the ground. It’s been two days since my last meal, and all my energy has been spent walking here so this is harder than I’d hoped. I tried to find the house all morning until I finally recognized my neighbor’s five-foot-tall metal rooster yard art. Still standing in their front yard but melted to just a hint of what it once was. I used to hate that thing and complained about it constantly. Now it’s how I found my way back here.

The box springs clatter to the ground as I move them aside, despite my attempt to stay quiet. Looking in all directions for people who might have heard that, but there’s nothing. No sound. No starved faces. Just nothing. Good. I stare down at that mud. What lies beneath there? What lonely horror arose and came to an end here? I can feel that sinking feeling again. That cavity in my chest that I’ve long tried to ignore. It’s swelling to the point that all of me wants to crawl inside it. Close my eyes and let it take over. Just disappear completely.

A crack in the distance. Maybe just a falling bit of debris. Maybe people. Maybe they heard me after all. Falling to my hands and knees and throwing my knife to the side. I need to use my hands for this part. Scraping the mud away. Pulling it back in shards and discarding it behind me. That feeling welling up. My eyes want to shed tears, but I haven’t drunk water in days and there’re no tears to give. My fingers feel like they’re going to break from the burden of this necessary task. The ground is dense and unyielding, but I have to continue.

Another sound in the distance. A voice? I can’t stop now. I have to know. I can’t wonder anymore. I’ve spent years wondering and I’d rather die now and know than go another day wondering where it is. My hands claw at the mud and peel it back in finger-width stripes. I’ve contemplated this moment for so long. Where is it? It has to be here. Voices. I can hear them now. There’s no denying it. The mud is coming out in clumps now. The earth getting blacker the deeper I dig.

Silver. A chain. I want to take my time. Be careful. But there’s no time, and I’ve waited too long for this. My hands scrape the mud back, pulling the chain from the darkness until it breaks free. There it is. Somehow still polished. Still shining even in the midst of all this fire and ash and death. Here it is. That heart-shaped locket. The chain unbroken. The inscription I had paid extra for, still visible. A bright contradiction in my blackened hands.

Sinking back to sit down at the edge of this hole I’ve dug, I just can’t do anything but clutch this heart in my palm and weep. I can’t honestly tell you if I’m feeling joy, or relief, or torment. Maybe it’s somewhere between. Is that possible? Those voices behind me getting louder now. Their footsteps are a staggered attempt at running, and they’re growing closer. I could flee, but to what? This is home. It always has been. All the years in between have been putting off this moment when I returned. This is where this should have happened all along. I should have been here, and I suppose I’m content now to set things right. Someone’s behind me.

Now I’m running. Running through my home. Not as it is, but as it was. Light shining in from bright skies above. Picture frames hung on the wall with our favorite portraits. Food in the pantry. Water in the tap. Not a care in the world. I’m laughing and I know why. This is her favorite game and because of that, it’s mine too. No matter how many times we’ve played it, it always ends in the same place. I’ve pretended to look everywhere else already. It’s time to end the game. I get down on my knees and then lay on the floor in my room. This is her favorite place to hide when we play, and when she’s scared. There, from under our bed, my daughter’s smiling back at me. Those golden locks of hair covering her face in scattered curls. Blue eyes and a contagious smile. All the hope and dreams in the world yet to be discovered. And that heart-shaped locket around her neck.