Gravedigger's Assistant (standard:drama, 937 words)
Author: Jean Smith	Added: Oct 11 2010	Views/Reads: 3146/1897	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Man buries his father and remininces about a secret about his father that may or may not be true.

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Within the reminiscing of truth not forgotten 

A lover, a fool at times, yes, who still yearns 

To trace his words, words under no pretense 

Will give forth his mournful meaning 

Flavored with life's riches, bounty, a permeation like incense 

Words etched with caution, for he hopes for this to be his dreaming 

Fool cannot sustain his own life for 

The grievance of his promise broken too soon 

Through death a betrayal leaving fool forlorn 

Yet was witness to a lover whose own devotion waxed and waned like the
elliptical moon 

A final glance, a grey yellow streak breaking up the heavy edges of the
twilight sky, and the gravedigger departs. 

At 6:20 the next morning, Ralph is on the train to the city. He still
remembers his boss's words, stinging him like a slap and making his 
eyes water. His boss called his father a murderer and a pauper. Ralph 
sighs deeply, gazing out the window, smudged with grime so he can 
barely make out the outlines of the trees lining the tracks, and the 
fine houses immersed in them, lawns small and well mowed. “Five 
twenty-five, please”. The conductor looks at Ralph, squinting and 
scratching his chin. Ralph gives him a ten and pockets the change, 
pushing his hand deep into his pocket, a little torn at the seams. 

By seven, Ralph is walking along the damp pavement towards the city
public library. Inside, he searches South African papers for an article 
on the crime his father supposedly committed. There is very little, 
only a brief article in the metro/region section of a Johannesburg 
newspaper. The article depicts the death of a young woman and her 
little boy in a fire in February 1982. The small house was located on a 
farm Ralph's father, Gerald Hines, owned, and arson was suspected but 
never proven. Gerald Hines was never charged, but the locals knew his 
connection to the woman and child, and spoke about it publicly. It was 
believed Ralph's father had an affair with this woman, until she told 
him she was going to marry the father of her child. A crime of passion, 
his neighbors thought. 

By noon, Ralph is eating a tuna sandwich, lettuce and onion with
mayonnaise, with a tall unsweetened ice tea to quench his thirst. He 
has to bury another this afternoon. 


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