Musemuggers
Title: The Bad Rope
Author: keppiehed
Word Count: 1113
Prompt: knot: “a good knot on a bad rope is no better than a bad knot”--Alvin Smith
A/N: Written for musemuggers, Challenge #517, Option #4, the cloud (knot). If you see my prompt phrase, the duality of this quote really inspired the format of this story.
1.
The handle on the shovel breaks about four feet into the job. The wood cracks apart right there in my hand, but none of the splinters puncture the skin. I throw down the useless tool and take up the hatchet instead. “I told you this was a bad spot,” I say. “We should’ve gone by the road.” I hammer home the surety of my claim with every swing of the blade.
You just grunt and keep digging. The soil here is dry and full of roots. Your brow is streaming with sweat, a sight I rarely see, but you keep wrestling with that hole in the ground. We take turns: I sever the roots and you carve another foot deeper into the dirt, then we both eye the horizon.
Darkness is falling.
A.
Kelly didn’t like the rain. It was good for the garden, she knew, but the confinement indoors all day wasn’t worth any amount of environmental health. It wasn’t that cold or that dark, but she felt the ominous chill of the impending season anyway. She wished she could go back to bed.
“Are you feeling okay?” Marta, the maid, asked. “You look like you’re getting sick.” The unspoken “again” hung in the air, but Marta knew better than to say anything judgmental to the boss’s wife.
“Just a headache,” Kelly said, and she realized it was true. It was always true, though. She rubbed at a spot on the underside of her knuckle where a splinter was just starting to fester from a wayward prick last week. She had been deadheading roses and hadn’t noticed the sting until just now.
Marta nodded. “Can I get you anything? Some of that brandy you like?”
“No, I’m fine.” Kelly looked out at the rain. It was going to continue all day, and perhaps even into tomorrow. “Well, maybe just one glass.”
2.
“That’s enough,” I say. You don’t agree-I can tell by the way you hold your mouth when you disapprove of something-but you don’t say anything, so we stop. “I think that’s enough, don’t you?” I ask.
You know I’m not really looking for an answer, so you just wipe the sweat from your brow and you go back for the wheelbarrow. It’s hard to push through the undergrowth. I can see your muscles straining, and you clench your teeth, but you manage to rip through the wild kudzu with your load. You tip the body into the hole without ceremony.
It doesn’t fit. The grave is too shallow. My breath hisses as I see our error: the man is too long, and his arms spill out over the sides of the hole that seemed to yawn just a second ago when the heat of my efforts convinced me that it was deep enough to hold a man twice his size. Now I see that it wouldn’t hold half such a man.
I sigh, but regret is lost in the wind.
B.
“Ma’am? Ma’am.”
Kelly felt the sharp shards of a headache before she opened her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked or rather, tried to ask. Her tongue was too thick in her mouth to comply.
Marta guessed the intent of the question. “Past lunch, Ma’am. I thought you wouldn’t like to sleep too much later.”
“No.” Kelly sat up and winced as the blood pounded in her head. “Is it still raining? Have the tulips dried out a bit?”
Marta pulled back the draperies, but even the wan light of the endless drizzle was too much to bear. Kelly saw her wheelbarrow full of rainwater and sank back into her cocoon of blankets, the insensate darkness a welcome shield from the thoughts best left to a brighter day.
3.
I reach for his arm, ready to tug him out and start this task afresh. The thought of chipping away at that stubborn grave for another hour is a dead weight in my gut heavier than the corpse, but there he lies, half hidden in the ill-prepared earth. It must be mended.
You step into the grave, the cracking of bone loud under your heel. His ribs fracture under the punishing sole of your boots, and you make room with only the weight of your own body for ballast. I am both impressed and disgusted by your nerveless ingenuity. When you hold out your hand for the hatchet, I watch you slice through limbs as I had hacked through trenchant roots deterrent to our cause just a quarter hour prior. In short order, you have made the room that I had lacked.
I pick up your shovel and finish the job. When we leave for home, there is nothing left but a slight rise in the forest floor that will settle over time into the indecipherable knots of nature’s ubiquitous chaos.
C.
The last clouds of the storm had passed. Kelly lifted her face to the sun and smiled. Her husband would be home today. All was well.
The ground was soft, but not too waterlogged to render it unworkable. Kelly pulled on her sturdiest boots and selected a trowel, anxious to begin gardening. It relaxed her to bury her hands in the soil. She enjoyed planting seeds in the spring and nurturing the sprouts to life throughout the season. It was soothing to bring order to her own little plot of land. She dug in with her fingers and pulled the stubborn kudzu free from her tender garden patch. The muscles of her hands clenched and she felt alive for the first time in days.
A shadow fell over her and she looked up to see her husband and his brother standing in her light. She stood for a kiss. “I didn’t realize the time. You’re back sooner than I thought. How did it go?”
“Fine,” he said. “There was a little problem, but Jake fixed it.”
“Oh, good,” Kelly said. “You don’t have any more business trips planned, I hope.”
Her husband patted her arm. “You know the market. Sometimes it takes us by surprise. Isn’t that right, Brother?”
Kelly looked at Jake, but he just nodded, as usual.
“Don’t you let us bother you, sweetheart. We have some loose ends to tie up, and we’ll just bore you with the details. Why don’t you stay out here and enjoy your day?” her husband said. They turned towards the house.
Kelly sank back to the ground. She plunged her spade into the dirt, happy to till the earth into life. She watched a flock of birds fly overhead and she knew it wouldn’t rain for a long time to come. She stayed outside until darkness fell.
Author: keppiehed
Word Count: 1113
Prompt: knot: “a good knot on a bad rope is no better than a bad knot”--Alvin Smith
A/N: Written for musemuggers, Challenge #517, Option #4, the cloud (knot). If you see my prompt phrase, the duality of this quote really inspired the format of this story.
1.
The handle on the shovel breaks about four feet into the job. The wood cracks apart right there in my hand, but none of the splinters puncture the skin. I throw down the useless tool and take up the hatchet instead. “I told you this was a bad spot,” I say. “We should’ve gone by the road.” I hammer home the surety of my claim with every swing of the blade.
You just grunt and keep digging. The soil here is dry and full of roots. Your brow is streaming with sweat, a sight I rarely see, but you keep wrestling with that hole in the ground. We take turns: I sever the roots and you carve another foot deeper into the dirt, then we both eye the horizon.
Darkness is falling.
A.
Kelly didn’t like the rain. It was good for the garden, she knew, but the confinement indoors all day wasn’t worth any amount of environmental health. It wasn’t that cold or that dark, but she felt the ominous chill of the impending season anyway. She wished she could go back to bed.
“Are you feeling okay?” Marta, the maid, asked. “You look like you’re getting sick.” The unspoken “again” hung in the air, but Marta knew better than to say anything judgmental to the boss’s wife.
“Just a headache,” Kelly said, and she realized it was true. It was always true, though. She rubbed at a spot on the underside of her knuckle where a splinter was just starting to fester from a wayward prick last week. She had been deadheading roses and hadn’t noticed the sting until just now.
Marta nodded. “Can I get you anything? Some of that brandy you like?”
“No, I’m fine.” Kelly looked out at the rain. It was going to continue all day, and perhaps even into tomorrow. “Well, maybe just one glass.”
2.
“That’s enough,” I say. You don’t agree-I can tell by the way you hold your mouth when you disapprove of something-but you don’t say anything, so we stop. “I think that’s enough, don’t you?” I ask.
You know I’m not really looking for an answer, so you just wipe the sweat from your brow and you go back for the wheelbarrow. It’s hard to push through the undergrowth. I can see your muscles straining, and you clench your teeth, but you manage to rip through the wild kudzu with your load. You tip the body into the hole without ceremony.
It doesn’t fit. The grave is too shallow. My breath hisses as I see our error: the man is too long, and his arms spill out over the sides of the hole that seemed to yawn just a second ago when the heat of my efforts convinced me that it was deep enough to hold a man twice his size. Now I see that it wouldn’t hold half such a man.
I sigh, but regret is lost in the wind.
B.
“Ma’am? Ma’am.”
Kelly felt the sharp shards of a headache before she opened her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked or rather, tried to ask. Her tongue was too thick in her mouth to comply.
Marta guessed the intent of the question. “Past lunch, Ma’am. I thought you wouldn’t like to sleep too much later.”
“No.” Kelly sat up and winced as the blood pounded in her head. “Is it still raining? Have the tulips dried out a bit?”
Marta pulled back the draperies, but even the wan light of the endless drizzle was too much to bear. Kelly saw her wheelbarrow full of rainwater and sank back into her cocoon of blankets, the insensate darkness a welcome shield from the thoughts best left to a brighter day.
3.
I reach for his arm, ready to tug him out and start this task afresh. The thought of chipping away at that stubborn grave for another hour is a dead weight in my gut heavier than the corpse, but there he lies, half hidden in the ill-prepared earth. It must be mended.
You step into the grave, the cracking of bone loud under your heel. His ribs fracture under the punishing sole of your boots, and you make room with only the weight of your own body for ballast. I am both impressed and disgusted by your nerveless ingenuity. When you hold out your hand for the hatchet, I watch you slice through limbs as I had hacked through trenchant roots deterrent to our cause just a quarter hour prior. In short order, you have made the room that I had lacked.
I pick up your shovel and finish the job. When we leave for home, there is nothing left but a slight rise in the forest floor that will settle over time into the indecipherable knots of nature’s ubiquitous chaos.
C.
The last clouds of the storm had passed. Kelly lifted her face to the sun and smiled. Her husband would be home today. All was well.
The ground was soft, but not too waterlogged to render it unworkable. Kelly pulled on her sturdiest boots and selected a trowel, anxious to begin gardening. It relaxed her to bury her hands in the soil. She enjoyed planting seeds in the spring and nurturing the sprouts to life throughout the season. It was soothing to bring order to her own little plot of land. She dug in with her fingers and pulled the stubborn kudzu free from her tender garden patch. The muscles of her hands clenched and she felt alive for the first time in days.
A shadow fell over her and she looked up to see her husband and his brother standing in her light. She stood for a kiss. “I didn’t realize the time. You’re back sooner than I thought. How did it go?”
“Fine,” he said. “There was a little problem, but Jake fixed it.”
“Oh, good,” Kelly said. “You don’t have any more business trips planned, I hope.”
Her husband patted her arm. “You know the market. Sometimes it takes us by surprise. Isn’t that right, Brother?”
Kelly looked at Jake, but he just nodded, as usual.
“Don’t you let us bother you, sweetheart. We have some loose ends to tie up, and we’ll just bore you with the details. Why don’t you stay out here and enjoy your day?” her husband said. They turned towards the house.
Kelly sank back to the ground. She plunged her spade into the dirt, happy to till the earth into life. She watched a flock of birds fly overhead and she knew it wouldn’t rain for a long time to come. She stayed outside until darkness fell.