Burying

Under the light of the moon and the vivid glare of car headlights, two friends work far into the night. The scrape of the shovels and the drip of sweat have gone on for hours. This is the largest grave they’ve ever dug.

The tall man spoke, “I’m not judging, mate. Well, yeah, I am but I still love and support you.” He hesitated, “We’ve got to stop this. You can’t just keep burying everything. What did this car even do to you?”

“Aside from being a Volvo, you mean?” The shorter man whipped off his hat and used it to mop the extra sweat from his brow. He sniffed imperiously. “You know what it did.”

“I know?”

He was quiet for a moment, as if trying to keep his words in, “It’s slighted me.”

“Oh, not this again! How could it have done that? It’s a car!”

“The very day I got this thing paid off,” he pointed an accusatory finger towards the headlights, “the check engine light came on!”

The tall man stared. “The check engine light came on!? Why not just go get it fixed?”

“It’s the timing of the thing. I can’t stand it. It’s slighted me and now . . .”

The tall man sighed and said, “Now we have to bury it.” Out of frustration he began to dig at a ferocious pace, trying to dig faster than his friend. The tall man was nothing if not an overachiever.

Later, during a break in the digging, the tall man looked out across the field at all the lumps of disturbed earth, at all the previous burials. “How much have you buried in here, anyway? He walked to the nearest lump of earth, a small one and kicked it. “What’s in here?”

The shorter man said, “That one there, is my last cell phone.”

“What did it do?”

“I asked Siri what the word savvy meant, and she said, ‘Not you.’”

The tall man nodded and went to another lump, “And here?”

“A pair of jeans.”

The taller man waited for elaboration but when none was forthcoming, he asked, “And?”

The shorter man hung his head, “The belt loop caught on a drawer in my kitchen as I was walking past.” He felt compelled to defend himself. “Well, it could be worse, couldn’t it? it’s better than burying bodies out here, ain’t it?” He paused, “Well, except for dear old Cuckoo. She’s over there.” He gestured vaguely to the left.

The tall man deadpanned, “Your pet chicken?”

The shorter man nodded.

“Whatever could she have done to you? She was gorgeous, plucky, vivacious! Why is she here, in your field of disappointments?”

The shorter man started digging again and grumbled, “She died.”

The tall man took this in, “Are you going to bury me here when I die?”

“No! What she did is that she didn’t respond when I tried to revive her.”

“Well. Be sure not to try and revive me then!”

The shorter man said, “The thing is, I’ve always rather assumed that between the two of us, I’d go first. So . . .if I outlive you that’d be like I’ve slighted myself.”

The tall man patted him on the shoulder, “Well, old friend, let’s hope it never comes to that.” He stopped and considered their work, “Here, I think this hole is deep enough, really. Why don’t you go drive that car into here and we’ll bury it like it never was. That’ll cheer you up.”

The shorter man perked up immediately. The hole was the perfect size and with every bit of earth he flung onto the roof of that car, the shorter man felt lighter and more carefree than he had in weeks.

Prompt ▼

The 22nd letter of the English alphabet is V. To highlight this versatile non-vowel, verily shalt thou pen a virtual story or verse containing all of the following words, each of which features two Vs, and make the words bold in your entry so tomorrow's judge can identify them easily:

revive
vivid
Volvo
vivacious
savvy
overachiever


One chosen genre must be Comedy, so the story or poem should fit that genre, and one of the genre tags should be Comedy.