The moon was sewn in the sky and the stars were stitched around it. Just another beautiful winter night. The shovel stood tired by the side of the empty grave just like the young boy sitting beside it eating his dinner of dry bread. There was no hint of any expression on his face, not even tiredness. It was as if watching all those people who he had buried had somehow soaked away the life force in him. The never-ending multitude of dead bodies kept coming, and there were never enough people to bury them.
First, they were digging separate graves for every one of them. It went on for a while but soon they realized that it was an impossible task. They moved on to putting two, sometimes three bodies in the same grave and it was not long before there were mass graves being dug. Only the rich and the privileged got the opportunity to be buried in their own graves.
Rehman was there from the start. When the first bodies started to come in. When the government asked the people to stay inside and no one listened. When the people finally started staying home but it was too late and the pile of bodies got bigger and bigger.
Every day he would dig graves till he almost fainted out of hard work, then collect his day’s payment and walk back home buying food in the way to feed his little sister, Zoya. Zoya was the only thing in this dying world that existed for him. In all the silence, the tired sobs, and the smell of death, it was just the little smile her sister gave him every day that made sense to him.
He finished his dinner and took a sip from his water bottle. Though he still had some breath left in him he somehow did not have the heart to go on. It was time to go home. Picking up the shovel he started walking towards the entry dock where he would be paid for the graves he dug.
A new tractor rolled in pulling a trailer full of dead bodies behind and there was a combined grunt from all the gravediggers. It had been long since the government had to deploy private tractors and mini trucks to pick up the dead bodies and distribute them to the nearby graveyards. It had been a logistical nightmare.
Dead bodies, a logistical nightmare. Who had thought the world would come to this. And because of what? Because of a virus that can be killed by washing hands.
All the technology, space exploration, mega factories, race cars, all for what?
The tractor rolled to a stop near the unloading bay where the bodies would be unloaded and sent in small batches to the mass grave. Rehman stood watching. Like every day. And like every day, hoping for the delay of the inevitable. He just hoped that he was not the first to die so that his sister’s body was not sent to some mass grave or even worse rotted away in his home.
There she was. Beautiful as ever. There was a pang of pain. Excruciating pain. But behind that pain, there was a feeling of relief. After all, he would be able to give her one thing he promised. A proper burial.
He went forward, picked her up and started walking towards the corner of the graveyard. No one came to stop him. There was no reason to. The world had already ended and these people were just the leftover flames of a dead fire.
At the corner of the graveyard, he kept Zoya on the ground. There were no tears in his eyes. Nothing. With so many people dead around him, this seemed like just another eventuality.
He felt a hand in his shoulder. It was an old man. Another gravedigger- just like him. He did not know him but somehow they both understood each other very clearly. He turned around looked at him and said with no feelings whatsoever.
“Would you bury a body for me?”
feeling Canvas 