Thief River Falls

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Down, down, down comes the rain of black dirt, landing in showers on the boy’s small body and slowly burying him in the ground.

Already, two inches of heavy earth weigh on his arms. His skin is cold. His face is wet with tears and blood. Nervously, he cracks his eyes to look up while he can still see anything at all. It is dark in the hole, where the glow of the moon can’t reach him. The men are shadows above him, working like machines. He hears the scrape of metal and rock as they wield their shovels. They whisper to each other, and he can hear their words over the loud noise of their breathing.

“I hate this, man. He’s just a kid.”

“Do you think I like it? There’s no other way.”

“Yeah, but a kid. That’s not why we did this.”

“Be quiet and finish the job. We’re wasting time.”

“What if someone finds them, man? I’m telling you, we didn’t dig deep enough. Someone might find both of them, and then what happens?”

“There’s no time, do you hear me? Hurry.”

Both of them.

Yes, the boy is not alone in the black hole. There is a man under his own body. The two of them are trespassers in a grave where they don’t belong. The man beneath him is warm, but he doesn’t breathe. He has arms and legs, but he doesn’t move. The man with him is dead, but the boy is still alive.

The ones with the shovels do not know this. They think they’ve killed him. The boy wants to cry, to whimper, to scream, but he has to stay quiet. He must be frozen like a statue if the men look down. An urgent voice whispers in his head and tells him exactly what to do.

It’s his mother’s voice.

They think you’re dead, my sweet. You must play dead. You must be dead.

Then, as if sensing his fear, she adds, But trust me, you’re not going to die.

He wants to believe that. His mother wouldn’t lie to him. Even so, panic wriggles up his body like a fat, hungry worm. The men shovel, the earth grows deeper, and all the boy wants to do is thrash and squirm and kick it all away from him. He can taste the damp ground in his mouth now, and he wants to gag, but if he does that, the men will jump down in the hole with the shovels again. They will hit him like they did before, much harder, and this time, he won’t wake up.

No.

He must wait.

The hole fills in around him, encasing him the way a fish gets trapped in lake ice. How deep is he now? Three feet? Four feet? His mother tells him again, You are not going to die, my sweet. And yet soon he is completely underground. The moon and sky disappear. The earth feels like a huge animal sitting on top of his chest. He can’t move his arms or legs. Even his lungs struggle to push enough soil away to breathe. As he does, he inhales dirt and spits it quietly out. He must do something. He can’t wait any longer.

Are the men still there?

He can’t hear their voices anymore or the scrape of the shovels. Everything is silent. Maybe they’re done. Maybe they’re gone.

It’s time, my sweet.

His stiff fingers curl like claws. He becomes a mole now, tunneling in the loose ground. He digs with both hands, inching toward the surface, pushing away the earth where he is buried. It is slow work. He chokes and coughs in the foul air. His whole world is black and dark and cold, and he is oh so tired. His head hurts where the men hit him. He wants to sleep. His mind floats, drifting off like a balloon in the air, dragging him up into the clouds.

You must keep going.

“But I’m scared,” he tells his mother.

I know.

“I can’t do it.”

Yes, you can.

“No. No, I can’t. I want it to be over.”

Don’t give up, my sweet.

But it would be so much easier to give up. The work is too hard, the earth too heavy, the surface too far away. If he stops, if he lets the ground win, he can see his mother again. They will walk off together. He will feel her arms around him. If he frees himself, he’s still alone. Without her.

The little mole stops tunneling. His aching fingers rest. Tears leach from his eyes into the blood and dirt caking his skin. The boy sobs. He needs comfort, needs to hear her voice again. Her real voice, not the one in his head.

“Mom?”

I’m right here, my sweet...