Archaelogy

I found a bone jutting out of the ground just a few miles from our house. Its clear white skin forming faint shadows on the green grass. I couldn’t make out if it was an adult’s or a child’s bone but I knew it was connected to something bigger. Perhaps a thigh bone or a rib cage. I stepped in closer to find out if it was worth anything maybe I could sell it to a museum or it could be an excavation site. I came closer and closer. My footsteps clearing grass and digging deep into the soft earth. I touched the bone, its smooth skin melted on my fingers. Its cold touch torpedoed through my veins. I pulled and pulled and wondered what might arrive if the bone revealed itself in the sunlight.

It did not budge. Sweat poured on my arms.

I went back home to get a shovel.

I saw the house and its oasis shadows for a moment. I felt like I saw another place maybe a distant memory of its previous inhabitants.

I wondered how a place could be so similar but not exactly the same. The same awnings, the same staircase, the same rooms, the same beds. Its as if I looked at a photograph but with different faces.

I opened the closet and took out the shovel. I felt its cold touch on my fingers it sent a rush of cold sweat through my veins. I wondered if the shovel was the only thing inside this closet before I came here?

I go back outside in the hot summer afternoon. In the distance the white bone juts out.

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