Digging Graves

It is a fine morning for grave digging. I know this because I have just woken up and there is a shovel by my side. Unlike most movies would have you believe, the ideal time for digging graves is not a rainy, windy night but early morning when the sun is still not beating down on you.

I shoulder the shovel and dig. Slowly and patiently. I do not allow the thoughts of who the occupant of this new berth in netherworld would be. I do not want to think about it. In the back of my mind I can see him. But the face stays out of focus. In about 2 hours I am done. I throw the shovel aside and climb out of the six by three by four pit. I look to see if there is somebody that I can tell that I am done. There is no body. I call out into the woods. Nothing...For a while. Then something strange happens. I begin to split. Literally. A vertical line splits me in two. As the two halves begin to separate, a lizard's tail like regeneration takes place. In a minute there are two of us. There is one of us whom I would like to call Old self (or myself) and another whom I would like to call the New self.

Now why would I make this distinction? Purely because the one seems to be scared of the other and as far back as I can remember my life has been soaked in the smell of fear. So I identify with the fearful one.

The two bodies do not talk. Apparently there is no need. Until a moment ago the brain had been shared. So each knew to a great degree what the other was thinking. Eventually both looked at the empty grave. It hit them both at the exact same instant that it had to be filled.

The New takes out the Old. In a few minutes the New buries the Old. Am I dead? Have I been reborn?

The New pats down the earth, walks 500 steps away and falls to the ground. He sleeps. When he wakes he has no recollection of what he has done or where has been. He sees a shovel and suddenly feels the urge to go grave digging...