Kapitel 54: Fifty-four: Gravedigger
I dug, only able to get through the ground in little layers at a time at first, because the ground underneath was still dry. The soldier ran off and didn't come back like he said he would. The sun set and I kept digging, shivering both hot and cold in the rain. The lights from the walls were just enough to see by. Rain collected and pooled inside the growing rectangular hole that I was making. The ground started to soften throughout, so that I could make steady progress. It was too slippery with my shoes on, so I took them off, but then it was hard to dig. In the end, I ended up with one shoe on and one shoe off, slipping and sliding in the water and mud. The hole got deeper and deeper. My hands were numb and sore. My back ached.
In order to heave the dirt and mud out of the hole, I had to carve slippery steps into the sides of the grave to make it easier for myself. My mind was numb with fatigue, but I kept digging. Whether I felt well or not wouldn't make a difference to the soldiers. They would only be looking at whether I had done what I was told or not. So I didn't think about anything else but making a perfectly rectangular hole.
Straight edges. Smooth walls. Digging down, down, into the slippery, slimy mud.
A body landed on top of me in the dark, making me scream. It was followed by another and another. I scrambled out of the hole, panting. My heart raced and leapt as if it were trying to jump out my chest.
"That was deep enough," the soldier told me, snickering with his friends. They heaved one more body into the hole. "Cover them up and then you may as well get started digging the ground for the farm," he told me. "Don't think no one saw you taking a break earlier in the day. I saw you. You have to make up for that lost time now," he said. A soldier pinched my backside, making me squeal and leap sideways into the arms of another soldier who had been waiting. He pinched me too. They played at the game of pinch the girl and make her squeal, until I fell backwards into the grave with a scream.
They shovelled mud down on me and laughed at how I floundered, trying to climb over the bodies to get out the grave. They pushed me back in several times until they got bored and sauntered off, leaving me crying in the grave. After a while, I managed to pull myself together and summon enough energy to climb out of the hole. After another little while, I began the hard work of filling the hole in. At the end, I smoothed the muddy ground over the grave and then discovered both my shoes were missing. I was too tired to go back to dig in the mud for them. They could be anywhere in there.
Catching my breath, I splodged away to the edge of the park where I began digging and turning the ground for the farmland. We did need more food after all. My achingly empty tummy could testify to that.
The sun rose and the pouring shower eased into a lighter shower. With the sun, came the other workers who seemed surprised to find me working alone and covered head to toe in mud. I must have been quite the sight, but they fell into place around me, continuing my work. I sneezed and sniffed every few seconds.
The soldier with the wobbly nose left me largely alone to work at my own pace. Today, he was allowing no one to speak. I wasn't the only one who had noticed that we were missing quite a number of people this morning. Ripples of nudges reached me with raised questioning eyebrows and small gestures. Tiredly, I indicated the smooth patch of mud a distance away and they stopped bothering me. Shaun managed to work his way over, until he was working beside me.
He glared at Wobbly Nose when he dared to come near us and Wobbly Nose seemed to understand the warning. At midday, we were permitted a rest and Wobbly Nose waved me over to where he and a few other soldiers had gathered.
"Eat," he ordered, pushing two buns of bread into my muddy hands. "Drink," another soldier held a bottle of water that he allowed me to drink in between bites. "You understand what you did wrong now?" I nodded emphatically. "Good. Let that be a lesson to you. You'll have an earlier finish today so that you can have a rest. There'll be more bodies tonight. Tomorrow we're getting a few truckloads of new prisoners and then there might be more for you to bury. From now on, you're our gravedigger."
I ate and drank as fast as I could, before they could get impatient with me. There was mud on my bread, but I could ignore that. At least I had food in my tummy. The bread was sweet in my mouth although it smelled like dirt. While I didn't much like the sound of my new job, there wasn't anything I could do about it.
"All right, get back to work," a kick helped me on the way.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein