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The spades hit the dirt one after the other forming a pleasant rhythm. They worked in silence as the dirt piled behind them grew. They hadn’t spoken many words since loading the truck and making the drive into the woods. They’d said a few words when picking out the spot, but once that was settled, they’d fallen into their customary silence.

At the outset it was easy and the dirt flew fast, but as they descended lower into the earth the ground was firmer, the digging harder. The older man’s pace began to flag, though he tried to work faster so his son wouldn’t notice his age, sweat still beaded on his forehead. He stepped out of the hole. His son looked up, and without a word went back to work.

Despite the cool shade of the trees his son’s shirt was damp and clinging to his muscled back. He admired the clean efficiency of his son’s powerful strokes. He felt old.

The mound grew higher as the sun rose. Neither man spoke as they alternated turns in the hole. They hadn’t talked about why they were here. It was understood between them. There was a job to do; they were doing it.

They never discussed more than the basics of the work, as they were on the same page of how to do things. The old man might explain a few peculiarities based on past experience, but for the most part the conversations were short.

When the hole was finished, they poured in two bags of lime, and then went to the bed of the truck for the body. They threw it in with another bag of lime covering it.

Sweat dripped from both as they bent back over their shovels and began to fill the hole in silence.

It had been a long day of travel and I was tired. I wanted nothing more than to find sleep early. Instead, I lay on my cot listening to the stories from the other room.

They’d introduced themselves when I arrived. There were a couple of kids from Norway – they’d bought the Budweiser I’d been offered when I entered; their naiveté apparent from their choice of beer. There were a couple of young kids playing at being hippies. Later on there were a couple of girls.

And there was Zephyr. He was in his mid-forties, soft around the middle, with a doughy face that might have once been attractive. It was a punchable face. He commanded the room with the authority of his bold proclamations and his years.

From my place on the cot, I could hear the respect in the hushed voices of his young audience as he told them of his participating in the Occupy movement, of how hard it was living in tents on the streets but how he’d found a beautiful woman who was crazy about sex and they’d made the best of it. He used ‘we’ a lot, implying he had played an important role in the planning of the movement.

There was amazement in the reverential tone of the questions and comments of these kids trying to experience some part of the world. It made my stomach turn.

Zephyr’s story was planned from the time he sat down. He’d asked leading questions of the Norwegian kids about their travel plans, maybe he’d shaken them down for the information earlier. Their answers led to New York, which led him into his story.

To hear him revel in his telling was to understand the insecurity of aging and why the movement had failed.

dew hangs foggy

over the morning fields of green

the sun brings clarity.