by Dania Sonin
***
The forest was cold and misty and the mist settled on the man like dew as he dug. Steam came off his arms and his legs as he worked. A constant stream of sweat cooled him. A fragile body, cold and stiffening now with the beginnings of rigor mortis, lay just above him, its eyes open, forever staring at the bright moon. The body was too fresh to mean anything to the bugs yet, so for now, it continued to cool, and the steam that came off it rose to meet the thick fog.
The smell of the fresh earth made him sick. Feeling it once again under his nails, in his shoes, and all the grit on his skin made him sick. All it meant was that he would be alone again. He rested his shovel against the wall of the new grave. It was six feet deep like all the others. He pulled the emaciated corpse in and it fell on him with unexpected weight. For a moment he panicked, yelping like a little girl and brushing the body off frantically like an unwanted spider. When it was off and lying there, its limbs oddly angled and the jaw jutting into the dirt, he cursed himself for having been such a coward and went about laying it down straight and respectably.
“Why’d ya have to go an’ leave me, huh?” he asked it as he untangled the body’s limbs. “Why’d ya hafta go an’ leave me cold like this? All I wanted to do was play some fetch. You didn’t hafta go on an’ die like that.” He brushed the cool earth off the corpse’s face. It was cold down here, and he shivered lightly as he arranged the body just so, taking special care to make sure all the limbs were nice and straight. “None of you had ta go an’ die like that. Y’all prefer the cold ground to me, dontcha? Y’all prefer to be cold, lonesome bones. Well, yer still warm,” he said to his perfectly positioned companion, laying with it and holding it tight against himself.
He lay there till morning, hugging the body to himself, feeling its warmth drain and the joints stiffen forever. He sobbed and kissed it, telling it he was sorry, that he loved it, that he would stay here and be with it, keep it warm. The times before, he’d crawled out halfway through the day, cold and muddy. He’d filled in the grave shivering, feeling colder than before, numb all over, inside and out and caked with moist dirt. The other times he’d gone right back to town and found himself a new friend, somebody to love and be happy with. Every other time he found himself back in the warmth of his basement, standing over a poor soul that he could force to love him. This time though, he refused to let go. He refused to let the cold bones win, to let these ones escape. He was sick of the dreams, of their questions, their ridicule. They were his after all, he had made them, and if they got to be together, why shouldn’t he be with them? So, this time he slept there, shivering, clinging to the cadaver, and he dreamed of those cold bones, only this time he was one of them, and he was happy.
