The Gravedigger's Skull

A skull will lie in the dust, no longer left to waiting. Sitting there, it’s remnants of memory are lost to life, all pieces of existence paid to death. What is there in a skull, to show the person that it used to inhabit? There is no hair, no lips, no eyes. A skull shows no gender.

To the gravedigger with his malice pick it is no different, each skull the same as the next. With a heavy trawl he pushes against the earth, defying the force of nature placed as a final barrier. There is no careful action as the wooden hand is prised upon the air. The gravedigger’s mind is not racing, he knows how he does not pause to stare, nor consider the life that once lived but thrives no longer. In the end it is not a persons’ body that will be remembered.

The skull is the first to be lifted from the bed of eternity, tossed in the hands of the gravedigger. Without gloves he feels the callouses, the spaces where there used to be eyes, lips, hair. He does not know its gender.

The body of bones he lets keep, rustling their frail limbs amongst the fickle linings. It is easy, a murmur comes, to claim the pieces left for their life beyond. The gravedigger slips what he gains into a small bag, slung to the side in an act of carelessness. Bag and bones alike.

The skull takes its rest upon the side, gathering cold that will not be felt. When done the gravedigger takes it to his hand, returns it to the head. The other bones do not show a form of order, left to continue their rest in the gravedigger’s careless choice. Air is once again left to the living.

The gravedigger leaves the grave, leaves the body, leaves the skull. He has taken his jewels, his diamonds of living. There is no more thought paid as he forgets the feeling of the skull in his hands. Soon he will catch another.

The gravedigger each time, will consider the skull, consider its wait, consider his own wait. When the future comes a skull will lie in its grave, no longer showing a remnant of memory. As the gravedigger now steals upon a skull, one day a man will come and steal upon his own. The new gravedigger then will think the same, and will only pause as he holds the skull in his hands. Never will he know the antics they shared, nor will he care just as his bag will lie careless in the dirt.

A skull will lie there, waiting without knowledge for the gravedigger to disrupt its settlement. The memory of its being will be indifferent to the act upon it.

Either way, it is just a skull. One that shows no traits of what used to be. No hair, no lips, no eyes. There is no gender. There is no life. There is no gravedigger.