Robert's Chest

It’s hard to breathe. Not from digging until my muscles scream. Not from the dirt that fills the air after it escapes from the end of the shovel. No. My chest is tight. Having a gun pointed at you will do that apparently. No one told me. I’ve never seen a movie where someone points a gun at another person and they grab their chest and start gasping, but that’s what happened to me, and I consider myself a pretty manly guy.
That all changes with a gun in your face though.
I’ve never seen anything so scary as the abyss in the barrel of that gun.
The tiny blackness that seems to go on forever inside the gun.
Like how I’d imagine a black hole would look, sucking all the light and life into it, completely void of anything natural or comforting.
Kind of like if Mary Poppins was evil and her endless bag was a pandora’s box with all the pestilence and sorrow that’s ever existed.

Well, it’s not THAT bad.
Or I guess I should say, I’m over it.
i’m not just huffing and puffing, I mean, I was scared at first.
Damn scared.
But after about an hour with the gun trained on my back, the only thing that’s left is my tight chest.
I don’t think that’s going to go away.
I wish I had a heart condition.
That way I could just shovel a bit faster and then I’d keel over and make the bastards do the work they’re supposed to do.
Instead, I’m here like a chump, like a damn idiot, because when it all comes down to it, even if you can buy a few more hours to live, to think, it’s worth it.
Even if you know you should go out with dignity, and not do the bitch work of your will-be murderers.
Jeez. The least a murderer can do is take the time to dispose of a body. Put a little effort into it.
Kids these days.
Just want everything done.
I bet he would even find a way to have the gun shoot itself, so he wouldn’t have to curl his finger even that half inch.
He's standing there in his cheap gray suit, like a business-ghost against the black behind him. The effect is more surreal because of the headlights of the oldsmobile behind him. the tree next to him is like his faithful servant. some kind of evil ent, lacking branches and devoid of a soul. He didn't even press his suit.
“Lazy son of a bitch.”
“what did you call me?”
“you heard me,” I say. It’s the first tough thing I’ve said, and it’s easy now that I’m all worked up in my head. Besides, he won’t kill me yet. I’ve barely dug up to my knees, this ground is so fucking rocky and hard.
He chuckles a bit.

I wish I could put this shovel through his face. It’s sharp enough, a bit duller from hitting these rocks, but still sharp enough.
I can picture it so vividly, swinging around gracefully on the balls of my feet, simultaneously grabbing the shovel like a spear. In one fluid motion, launching it forward through space, perfectly level, head-level to be exact.
Watching his eyes grow the way I felt mine grow when he first pulled out his gun.
Seeing him raise his gun just a little too slowly and firing it into the ground in front of him as the shovel splits his nose in two, making an upside down smile in the middle of his face.
I can even hear him spluttering because it wouldn’t kill him. I don’t have enough force for that. I would have to step out of this grave and finish him with my bare hands.
I wish I could do all of that.
I wish I had at least a fighting chance.
But things never play out that way in real life.
I would throw it too hard, or throw it crookedly and he would just get angry and shoot me in the foot or arm.
Then he’d make me keep digging, and the pain would be excruciating.
No, better to keep digging as slowly as possible without raising suspicion and keep thinking.

I wish my brain would work!
I wish I could think of a million different scenarios, and then pick the one most likely to work.
Instead all I can think about is that one heroic scenario, my brother when we were kids, and that fucking doors song “this is the end, my only friend, the end.”
How annoying.
Over and over.
I wish I’d treated my brother better.
Who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up here. Maybe being nicer to him would have been my first step on the path to being a better person.
I can’t decide if I should come up with a plan or accept my fate.
I mean, a bullet is a pretty quick way to go if it’s placed correctly, and if I don’t piss this guy off by trying to escape that’s probably just what he’ll give me.
He doesn’t seem the sadistic type.
He’s not enjoying this any more than I am.
And neither is the driver.
He’s just sitting in the Oldsmobile, making sure the battery doesn’t die by turning the car on every once in a while.

How long has it been?
An hour? Two?
It’s so hard to think straight.
This is where those math questions come in handy.
If Robert digs at an average of 6 inches ever 45 minutes, how long will it have been when he’s dug 2 feet and 3 inches of his own grave?
Maybe if I use the shovel just right, it can act like a tiny shield and block the bullets he fires.
But that would be so hard for me, and so easy for him to shoot somewhere else.
I’m not a ninja.
I can’t do that whole deflect-bullets-with-a-sword thing.
Maybe I can.
Maybe I have enough adrenaline pumping in me to give me superhuman reflexes.
Maybe I can will myself out of having a beer gut and atrophied muscles from working as an accountant for 13 years.
Huh.
13 years.
I laugh a bit to myself.
There’s a reason superstitions exist sometimes I suppose.
I wish I had some salt to throw over my shoulder.
Well, maybe not salt, but more like a beaker of acid.
That would be great.
Why don’t I carry anything on me for protection?
Even mace would get me out of this now.

Hmmm..
That gives me an idea.
I’ve actually been flinging this dirt long enough to have gotten a feel for it.
Maybe I can fling a big shovelful up into his face.
The grave is past my knees now, which means I could run away from the car and it would have to swerve around it and the tree to get me.
That would buy me enough time to make it into the trees in front of me, where I could at least have a chance.
Wow.
I think I can actually do this.
Let’s see.
I can feel how the dirt moves from my shovel and makes a trajectory right to the place in the pile I want it to go.
My chest has a different tightness now.
My heart’s beating faster.
I glance as casually as I can over my shoulder at the guy with the gun.
He yawns. I can tell I’m ready because I don’t yawn in response.
I dig a little on the sides just to expand the grave a bit.
Buy me another half second or so with the car.

“That’s deep enough.”
“What?!”
“Turn around”
I try to stall, I’m so close. I just need the element of surprise. Maybe I can convince him…
“dogs will still be able to find me this shallow,” I say, taking one last huge shovelful of dirt, and turning slowly towards him.
I can feel the tightness in my chest readying me, helping me now instead of hindering me.
He’s squared off with me now, gun aimed at my chest.
I’m holding the shovelful of dirt just below the rim of my own grave, waiting for my opportunity. My palms itch on the splintery wooden handle.
“nobody is going to find you. Do you have any idea how many bodies we have buried around here?” he asks.
I pretend to look around and see if I can pretend to count them, watching to see if he looks away from me, even for a second.
He doesn’t.
Instead, when I turn my head back to him, he fires.
And I thought the tightness I had before was bad.
There’s a big difference between having difficulty breathing, and not having your lungs work at all.
I must look like a fish, gasping this way.
I notice that I’m staring at his shoes now.
What happened to the shovel?
I don’t think it’s in my hands anymore.
But I need it.
I need to act.
Now’s my chance.
If only I could breathe and look higher than three inches off the ground.
I think my head is resting on the ground on his side of the grave.
Blackness.
Brightness again.
Now, like a tidal wave, air rushes into my one good lung.
I hear the whooshing of a 747 taking off, and realize that it’s me inhaling sharply.
I clutch at the ground and push myself to stand up and face my attacker.
I over shoot it and push myself backwards watching the lights float higher above me as the rim shoots skyward and I land on my back in my grave.
I hear the 747 whoosh again, and a car door open.
“Jesus Mickey, finish him already.”
The 747 whooshes again.
“He called me a lazy son of a bitch,” Mickey says.
“You are a lazy son of a bitch.”
The 747 lurches forward on the runway again, loudly.
“just grab the shovel and let’s get finish this.”
“I’m not burying a man alive Mickey, you do it, or finish him and I’ll help you.”
The 747 whooshes again, and this time takes off.
I wish I’d treated my brother better.
The 747's engines’ scream turns into a long dull roar that slowly quiets into a white noise in the background.