Glue Trap Suburbia

All the homes in Cassus come with a white picket fence and a graveyard on the front lawn. Decorated with flowers and photos of bygone days, each tombstone is a museum of the great American dream. For generations, the graves were left undisturbed, bodies resting peacefully beneath the earth. That was until I arrived this morning, shovel in hand.

The roads were empty as I walked by the polished sign welcoming me to Cassus. It was Sunday, which meant the locals were likely wasting their morning packed into church like sardines. With the shovel fastened to my knapsack, I strolled through the vacant streets, idly scribbling observations in a small black notebook. Despite each house looking nearly identical, I made sure to write down the addresses that stood out to me. Some simply had a brighter coat of paint or a fence that was an inch or two taller than others, but I knew that even the most minute details could be the difference between fortune and a handful of dirt.

Hours ticked away as the sun weighed heavy in the cloudless sky, refusing to retreat for even a moment. Upon my back, the shovel began to beg, desperate to breach the graves that lay beyond each fence. The notebook became overrun with detailed descriptions, pages dwindling by the minute. Surely the locals would return soon, utterly drained and ready to collapse into the warm embrace of their bed. In the distance I would hear the rumble of cars as they made their way back home; and with that, I’d slink off to hiding and await nightfall. But there were no cars in the distance and the day never seemed to wane, in spite of it feeling like years since I first set foot in town. Every house bled into each other in varying shades of gray, and the street signs seemed to be repeating.

Completely drained and growing more impatient with every picket fence I passed, I contemplated ending my journey through the streets of Cassus once and for all. Never halting my feverish note-taking, I wrestled with the options in front of me. On the one hand, I could continue to gather information before the locals returned, which would give me the time to select the perfect grave. Alternatively, I could seize the moment and start the excavation while they were still absent. During past ventures, I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of unearthing a casket in broad daylight. While I found a certain thrill in my work, I was absolutely terrified of being discovered. Yet here, there was no one to discover me— for now at least. Either way, the road ahead was hazy, and if I refused to settle down any longer, I’d likely collapse from exhaustion.

Taking off the knapsack and resting on the nearest fence, I let out a heavy sigh as the notebook fell beside me. My left wrist throbbed with pain as the remaining ink in my pen leaked onto the sidewalk. It was unbearably hot and I had never felt more tired. Aching with every slight movement, I picked up the notebook and started thumbing through the thin white sheets in a panicked attempt to keep myself awake. Page after page was covered with numbers and haphazardly written words that even I could barely read. After skimming through the notebook from front to back, I came to the realization that not a single description stood out to me. In fact, most of the content was exactly the same. The notebook fell beside me once more, the black cover now tarnished. Hardly aware of my own thoughts, my mind wandered in search of any possible solution to my mounting problems. Most of the day had been wasted, the locals were still nowhere to be found, and every inch of my body was enveloped in pain. Cassus was an abyss and I was falling endlessly inside it.

Slumped against the fence, ready to give myself to sleep, I humorously wondered what would happen when someone found me. Would they piece together my disastrous story from the suspicious notebook and the shovel attached to my knapsack? Or perhaps they would throw me to the streets without thinking twice. Neither possibility mattered much now I supposed. My eyes locked shut as I drifted in and out of consciousness, thoughts of the town and the missing locals disappearing.

Far above me, I heard a deafening hiss that sounded like rusty nails being dragged through plastic. Awoken in an instant, I caught a glimpse of a bald eagle as it soared across the sky, escaping far beyond the grey homes of Cassus. A strange sense of calm washed over me as the thundering pain in my body lessened. There was something meaningful in that soaring eagle, as if it was sent to remind me why I came to this wretched town in the first place. Somewhere in the farthest reaches of my soul I found the strength to stand up, using the posts behind me as a crutch. Grabbing the notebook in one hand and the knapsack in the other, I limped towards the gate in the far right corner of the fence I was leaning on.

Tossing the notebook above the fence to free my right hand, I reached over the wooden pickets to unlock the latch on the other side. The gate swung open with a rusty creak, unveiling a yard of neatly cut grass and a single tombstone. Avoiding the turf completely, I quietly moved along the stone walkway which led to a narrow front porch. The closer I came, the more I noticed the chips of gray paint flaking off the exterior. It was clearly an old home, far more withered than it appeared from the sidewalk. Through the window I could make out an ordinary living room decorated with surprisingly lavish furniture. All the lights were off but it was evident that despite the state of the outside, whoever lived here was quite wealthy. My attention turned back to the lawn and the lone tombstone, the gray house a relic of the past. I unclipped the shovel from the knapsack, dropped the rest of my possessions on the porch steps, and walked towards the grave.

The headstone was placed in the center of the yard, surrounded by bouquets of cherry blossoms and stacks of pictures held under small garden stones. Strange how such a morbid site could look so lovely. As I stared at the unmarked grave, some instinct buried deep inside me told me to run. To run from Cassus and never look back. There was nothing stopping me, but I kept repeating the same question in my head: “If I leave now, would it all be for nothing?” Dirt flew to the side as the shovel broke through the ground below the grass. Thoughts of escape were expelled, now focused only on the steady monotonous routine of digging. Sweat poured down my face and my hands became calloused, yet I plowed onwards. The minutes turned to hours till my shovel collided with the wooden lid of the coffin. With excitement I placed the shovel aside and frantically brushed the remaining dirt off with my hands. Taking a deep breath, I peeled open the cover, bracing myself for the scattered remains of a body.

Laid out across the coffin were twenty even stacks of cash, each placed in a grimy plastic pouch. There was no body or bones whatsoever, but none of that mattered to me in the moment. Heart beating fast, I unzipped one of the pouches and pulled out a bundle of ten C-notes wrapped in a rubber band. Quickly adding the numbers in my head, I gathered the plastic pouches and carefully set them on the grass. It was twenty grand in total, more than I had ever made in a town, let alone a single grave. In fact, the last time I counted: $20,000 was the exact amount I had made on all of my trips combined.

Curious as to why someone would bury a small fortune in place of a body, I picked up the stack of photos next to the tomb; a smile resting on my face. But my smile slowly fell away when I saw myself in the first picture. There I was in black and white, leaning against the welcome sign to Cassus, notebook in hand and the shovel on my back. Perplexed, I flipped through the rest of the pictures, still sitting on the ledge of an open grave. There were photos of birthdays, weddings, and funerals; of barbecue’s and block parties. The only constant was me, always believing I was the only one there.

I was barely able to comprehend what I saw when something swooped above my head, causing me to recoil and fall sideways into the pit. My body slammed into the ground, the fall only lessened by the padded open casket. Before I knew it, I found myself in the clutches of the coffin, unable to move. The grave was a glue trap, and there was no escaping it. Above me I could see the creature that had startled me, staring from the ground above. It was the same bird I had seen soaring across the sky earlier, yet somehow it looked completely different. How did I not see it before? It wasn’t an eagle at all— it was a vulture.