DIGGING

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in Worcester and, miracle of miracles, it wasn’t raining. Scant days before those wonders of modern living, the green and black wheelie bins, had been unceremoniously deposited outside my house. To make the best of a bad lot I set about re-landscaping the front garden; otherwise known as digging a hole.

No sooner had I started, one of the neighbours appeared at the garden wall.

‘You’ve got yourself one hell of a job there,’ he said.
‘Tell me about it,’ I replied.

‘Just moved in, have you?’ he asked.

‘Not too long ago,’ I replied. ‘I wanted to be sure of these damned bins before I did any serious work.’

‘They’re a nuisance alright,’ opined the observer. ‘No good for these houses at all.’

‘Hmm,’ I concurred, reluctant to get dragged too far into the debate. ‘I best be getting on with it. You take care now.’

Returning to work I shovelled away another bag full of soil, cursing the injustice of missing the football. My curses turned to consternation as my shovel resounded with a thud at something buried in the earth.

Kneeling down I scraped away the dirt to reveal the top of a wooden box. It seemed to be about six inches square and of a distinctly distressed appearance. I brushed away the last of the soil surrounding it and pulled if from the ground.

‘You’ve got yourself one hell of a job there,’ came a voice from behind me.

Jumping half out of my skin I turned to face the instigator of this new interruption. It was yet another of my neighbours, a man I knew only by sight. Hastily I dropped the box back into the hole from which it had so recently been liberated, kicking soil on top of it as I did so.

‘Tell me about it,’ I replied, sticking to my earlier script. ‘I don’t mean to be rude.’ I continued, meaning precisely that, ‘but I really need to be getting on.’

Screening the box from my neighbour I prized it once more from the ground. As I continued to brush the dirt away from it I noticed a worn but still legible brass name plate. Eagerly I worked away the last of the soil to reveal what it said:

“Property of Count Vlad Dracula, Transylvania.”

‘Oh my God!’ I thought.

With trembling fingers I fought to undo the corroded latch that held the lid closed; a mixture of brute force and rust finally opened the box. Slowly, painfully slowly, I inched the lid aside.

‘You won’t get that hole dug like that,’ said my wife. ‘Quit daydreaming and get on with it!’

I looked up from the as yet un-dug soil that lay before me; I really ought to speak to someone about the way my mind wanders. That would have to wait for another day, for now I needed to get on with digging this hole. Stabbing the spade into the ground I started to dig.

‘You’ve got yourself one hell of a job there……’
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COPYRIGHT D M PAMMENT OCTOBER 2007