Inearth

Inearth
by Marcus Eagan & Isaac Wilder

There was something surprising to her about how hard the earth could become, in the salted wind of mid-December. The earth stood in a solemn heap. The earth was surprisingly hard, unbearably hard. It was brittle and implastic. The mound of earth had a quality of fragility, too - something that goes along with a lack of plasticity. She had expected the earth to deform beneath the weight of the shovel – instead she found herself capable only of breaking the earth, of cleaving it chunk by chunk. The earth was harder than she had ever imagined the earth - and this was only sediment - only the six feet or so of loose stones and ruddy soil between infernal suffering and eternal rest. Her hands were not raw or callused in any way. Rarely before had they broken the earth, cracked the earth, shattered the earth. Rarely had they cleaved the earth into smaller and smaller pieces. Never had she had to fill a hole so big.