October 2024: The Grave Secret – Anne Golding-Ross
The Grave Secret
I plunge my hand into the open grave, trying not to breathe, not to think. I push aside the top layer of rotting leaves.
A hideous, stinking miasma hangs in the air like a warning. The stench is invasive, it seems, travelling insistently down my throat. I snap my open mouth closed, an angry biting creature. But who can I be angry at but myself?
I shouldn’t be robbing this grave, I know that. Good intentions should never end this way. It isn’t fair. It’s also not at all normal. Most people don’t spend their days like this.
My entombed hand is enveloped by the freezing cold. Damn, shit, fuck, why is this taking so long? It’s only a small grave after all. With the passage of time, have I forgotten where the bag is? Has someone else been here before me?
My hand locates a hard impassable surface, and I search it, encountering mysterious ridges and shapes. I visualise my fingers sliding through juices oozing from hideous corpses.
At last. Here’s the bag. I don’t feel triumph, just regret and sorrow for the time and love I’ve wasted.
Aching from the cold, I jab at the bag nervously. There’s a hideous, spongy softness, and my finger recoils into a protective fist, scuttling away like a frightened crab.
The worst has happened.
What the hell should I do?
The thought of moving that sinister softness, bringing it to the surface, terrifies me.
The bag’s contents have been damaged by time, and its seems an impossible task.
But I have to try.
My body cramps with discomfort as music drifts faintly from a nearby house. I’m alone. This is a burden I must carry in secret. It’s important not to scream, not to draw attention to my shame.
Most importantly, my children must be spared. I’ll never tell them what I’ve done here today. This is not their fault, and I’m determined that it will not be their destiny.
Unwillingly, my hand pushes through more muck to travel over the bag’s surface, which undulates as though it’s alive. To my relief, I find the knot I at the top. Above that, I find two elusive slippery edges which I am able to grab.
I take a firm hold. I tug. There’s a moist dripping noise, and a moaning dragging sound as my hand pushes aside the contents of the grave.
I realise my eyes are closed. I open one, and under the fluorescent light I can clearly see the sagging remains of the bag, pinched between my thumb and forefinger.
There’s green hideous slime dripping snot-like from the plastic I’m uselessly clutching. The smell is gum-rotting. Nose-melting. Vomit-inducing. Horror pulses through me. My instinct is to run, but running is impossible. I live here after all, and this is my fridge.
Zucchini is a nasty, vengeful vegetable.
Anne Golding-Ross
Right Left Write’s October competition had an Open theme.
November’s prompt is Coming-of-Age. Find out more about Right Left Write and make your submission at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s October competition had an Open theme.