I am digging my own grave. Not metaphorically. I am using a shovel to dig a hole that I will be buried in. This is where I will be buried if the man who is holding a gun above me decides that after this digging that, after he watches me dig, he will shoot me. This is where my body will fall and be buried. This is where I will die and find rest. I am buggered and want to rest. All this digging.
No, I think. I am not ready for resting, I am not prepared.
And at this moment, I decide – I will not die. Something will click within me and I will live. I keep shoveling but know suddenly that I will live, not how, just that I will. And with that thought I begin to calm and take note of my surreal train of thought. Only one of the two men above me holds a gun. We are on a small mangrove island no bigger than a house. The two men, brothers, took me here by boat. The mangrove is sort of pear shaped and just off the Ephraim Island. I wonder if the brother’s had seen it before, perhaps while cruising along the coast and thought to themselves, ‘perfect place to force a man to dig his own grave.’ Fucking bogans.
I’m digging with a broken shovel. The spade is loose and keeps shifting to the left as I sink it into the sand. I keep sinking it and sinking it, and think to myself that the island is less pear-shaped, but more house-shaped. The hole, now deep enough for me to stand in, is at the bottom left of the house-shaped island. I imagine the tapered top shore of the island as the roof of the house. The hole I’m digging is an oddly shaped window somewhere between the first and second floor of that house.
I keep digging. I will get out of this. I’m sure of it. Something will click and I will get out of it. My right hand is starting to blister. I also notice that the hole I’m digging, the oddly shaped window, is sort of spiraling in depth. I realize that this is to the fault of the broken shovel. The spade shifting to the left makes each sink of the shovel slightly slanted. For some reason I’m suddenly bothered by the lack of symmetry in this situation.
The men above me, the brothers, are standing awkwardly above the slanted, spiraling hole, one holding a gun to the back of my head, one sort of pacing and panting on the other side. There should be someone else in this hole with me – just to even things out. I imagine my best mate Diego behind me, digging in the same hole. I imagine the pacing brother has a gun on him as well. My confidence grows at this thought. Diego and I will survive. Something will click.
Diego must have decided the same, because we start listening. We listen to the sound of our prospective killers separately as they mutter back and forth and occasionally curse downwards, ‘keep digging you pair of fuck muppets.’ And we both hear it. We hear, for the first time, that these are not brave men. They are cowards to their own fault. They are not sure. They are not convinced that we will actually be buried in this hole.
‘Fuck. Get the fuck out here.’ I turn and heave myself out of the hole. Diego does the same. The blister on my right hand is bleeding. I am bleeding from the mouth where the one of the brothers has kicked me and from the head where the other swung and sunk a baseball bat. I stand and sort of smile at the one with the gun. He doesn’t like my pink frothy smile and so he raises the gun to my head. He tilts his head. His chin to one side, his eyes flaring, teeth grinding. I’m still convinced he’s a coward and I’m still waiting for something to click, the something that will get us out of this.
His gun is pressed between my eyes, not in the dead center, sort of high on my left brow. Nothing they do is symmetrical, I think. ‘Goodnight you fucking cunt,’ he says and pulls the trigger.
Click.
The gun doesn’t go off. ‘You must have been kissed on the dick by an angel.’ I fall to my knees. I make sure to land square on, finally adding some symmetry to the occasion. Diego falls beside me. I put my hands out, palms up in front of me, feeling the level, evenness of my position. I look to my right hand and see the bleeding blister; I look at my left hand where there is no blister. Not symmetrical, but I’ll take it. And just then, the other brother pulls a gun from his side and points it at my left hand, pulls the trigger, and sinks a bullet right through it. Finally. I throw my hands together to hold the wound. The blood from my left hand mixes with my right. Finally, some symmetry.
They pull me by my feet, throw me in their boat and pull away from the roof-shaped shore of the house-shaped mangrove island. I look up from where I am slumped over the inflated boat. In the night light I can barely see my window-shaped hole, just a small mound of dirt beside it. I imagine the wake from the boat as a small smokestack coming from the chimney of the house-shaped island. I look beside me and show my frothy, pink-smile to Diego. He smiles back. We will get out of this.
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