Metaphor for Life and Death
The day comes when they hand you a shovel and say, dig. You comply. You start to dig and keep digging. You are given no instructions other than to dig. No end point is given. Thanks to your compliance and handiwork, a hole emerges, deepens. You assume dig is akin to depth, to go deep not wide. Continuing your progress, you enter the hole: knee deep, waist deep, then full body deep in the hole. And then some more digging, lifting dirt, tossing dirt. Nobody is monitoring your progress. You have lost all sense of time with this never-ending digging. You become aware that exiting the hole is now your problem. You rest. You lie down. The moon illuminates the last beads of sweat on your quick-cooling brow. It is a moment that nobody will remember, nor will anyone recall it as the last time they ever saw you, there, in the dark, in the bottom of a deep hole you made for reasons still unknown.
Thad DeVassie is a writer and artist/painter who creates from the outskirts of a growing midwestern city. He is the author of three chapbooks including Year of Static (Ghost City Press, 2021), published as part of its Summer Series. Find more of his written and painted work at www.thaddevassie.com