Trembling With Fear 08/05/2018

The Digger

By day, I dwell in the hollowed-out shell of a rotting oak in the forest outside your town. There I curl and sleep against damp, mossy wood. Shielded from searing sun. Away from day people’s prying eyes.

I myself have no eyes. Children of the dark do not require them. Only hands and feet and teeth and snout to claw and dig and sniff and chew.

Day people count hours with numbers. But I know time only by darkness. When shadows are pure and pitch and ice cold, they seep into my flesh. It is then that I know you are asleep, and I emerge to dig.

Not one night goes by that I do not creep into the pitch and search. In the woods. In the park. In your yard. In your trash and sewers.

On dry summer nights, I claw through cracked crumbling soil.

In the winter, I chew through the ice and scrape apart frozen rock.

On stormy nights, I slop through muddy puddles, soak in glop up to my shoulders, and squish wet earth as I grasp for treasure.

I do not always find things, of course, but I dig for the thrill of searching.

Day people are quick to dismiss my holes. A gopher, a mole, a sinkhole. Any explanation that helps them sleep, while I dig so close to their primrose gardens and soft pillows.

The things you find in the ground will surprise you. Priceless coins. A diamond ring. Bones.

Objects tell stories. They reek of those who buried them. They drip savory day people feelings.

A day boy stole a box of rare coins from his friend’s grandfather. Too guilty to keep them, too fearful to confess, he buried the coins. At the bottom of the tree where I sleep is a pile of coins and bottle caps. The boy’s coins are colder than the other metal things I keep.

A day man gave his day woman a ring. She accepted, and later returned it. The man was too poor, not attractive enough for her. Too ashamed to bring the ring back to the jeweler, he buried it and drove away. The ring waited in the ground to tell its story to my hands.

The ring’s man will be forgotten.

But the bones in your garden told a tale so sad that I lamented I have no eyes for tears. I could not bring myself to drag the bones back into the woods with me. I left them there, out of respect. I visited them nightly. They whispered their stories over weeks and months.

Bones are more powerful you see than rings and coins. A piece of a day person’s soul remains trapped in a skeleton for hundreds of years.

To a day person, bones are quiet. But to me they are music.

You have asked me who I am, and I have told you, but I ask that you silence your tongue a while longer. I wish to know you. I wish to know why you put this other day person’s bones in the earth.

But you will need time to think in quiet darkness. I will take you there now, so that later—when I have all but forgotten—I might find your bones again and hear the tale.