A Dead Man Who Held A Shovel

His Job

The sound of a shovel being shoved into dirt could be heard in the dead of night. It was rhythmic in the silence. Holding the wood, were gloved hands that held firm. The shovel moved dirt, slowly creating a hole in the ground. The man, or rather skeleton, holding the tool stared at his handy work with hard, hollow eyes.

He grimaced: his job was always to dig holes, those holes would contain the bodies of the deceased. That was what the job entailed anyways.

Joe didn't know why there were two different jobs for digging the holes and burying the bodies when he first got his job, but he had soon found out why

On at least two occasions, he had seen caretakers, covering the places he dug and making new ones.

That made him think again, why his job and theirs were separate. He soon got his answer.

The new hole the caretakers dug, in both instances, had been two shallow. The bodies weren't even covered fully, they didn't even try to fix it, and the worst part was, they manhandled the deceased.

And he had seen them do better with coffins.

Joe was not a very caring man, yet when it came to the dead, he wished not for them to pass on with disrespect laying on their graves.

After these events, he took it upon himself to always come back to the grave, to help bury the Sobieski properly, and give responsibility to the dead.

He prided himself on showing his "goodness" in the smallest of ways.

For he would never actually consider himself a "good" man, and he hoped no one did.

He was a gravedigger, a man that had little joy, but perhaps that is simply because he never met a good person.