Have you ever had those days when a story sticks in your head? I have. The next Episode of Tongue Tied will be up next Wednesday, but I wanted to share this today. This story will be included my next Dark Tales collection. I wanted you to get a sneak peek at what's coming. It all began on a warm spring day...
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| The Challenge! |
Eli couldn’t believe the size of the dirt mound
that greeted him on his front lawn first thing in the morning. It was at least
twelve feet across at the bottom. No way one little gopher made that mound in one
night. Yesterday he had scooped the mounds of dirt from the seven mole hills
and scattered it in the flower bed. He had returned the lawn to flat by the
time the sun set yesterday, albeit pocked with bare dirt spots devoid of grass,
remnants of the gopher’s work from the previous night.
He wondered how there could be any dirt
left underneath the lawn. The mound was at least six feet tall and it looked
more like a dump truck load of topsoil had been dumped in the middle of his
yard than a mole hill.
“Don’t
make a mountain out of a mole hill.” His wife often cautioned him in his
relentless attempts to stop the destruction of his lawn. Had he just lost the
battle for supremacy over the Sargasso Sea of grass that stretched from the
front of the house to the street?
The mound was huge.
Even through his clenched teeth and his
blind anger, a sense of awe crept in unbidden. Should he allow the architect
and builder of such a magnificent mound to live? Not that all of his attempts
to eradicate the little beast hadn’t failed in miserable defeat. But if the
poison bait was vitamins for the mole and prompted increased digging, then the carbon
monoxide Eli pumped in from the car engine exhaust yesterday was most assuredly
nothing less than a mole ‘Kaf Pow’ energy drink or an aerosol injection of mole
steroids.
Without wanting to be, Eli was impressed. “How many moles are there?” Then he felt his
throat tighten and a knot formed in the pit of his stomach. Slowly an
unreasonable thought crept into his mind entirely unbidden. “How big is this mole?”
With that thought came another question.
Was his garden safe? It was out of sight on the other side of the mound. He
rushed around the mound and stopped as if he had run headlong into a concrete
abutment.
He stood like a stone statue staring at what
used to be his garden. Every promising plant and seedling was gone. Not as
though someone had harvested them, or the slugs had eaten them, it looked like they
had been pulled downward through the soil and were just gone. The only evidence
they were ever there were small holes marking where the stalks used to protrude
through the soil. Now they were but vacant holes staring toward the sky like so
many dead eyes.
His moment of being impressed by the
monumental mound fled. His face got red and he cursed. Eli didn’t curse very
often but this was not a normal occasion, and he let out a string of curses he
reserved only for the direst of times. “Horse feathers. Slimey, gooey pig
infested horse feathers.” He stared blankly at the empty garden plot, then turned
and glared at the mound of earth that now seemed less a marvel of engineering,
and more a hastily erected battlement. His face got even redder. He clenched
and unclenched his hands hanging at his sides. “This means war. I’ll get you,
you overgrown hairball.”
As if in response, more dirt seethed up to
the top of the mound from somewhere inside. A mini-avalanche of well tilled
soil rolled off the mound and partly covered his shoe. He was so mad, he
shuddered. Then a glimmer of fear crossed his face. Was the act symbolic? Did the
rodent understand in some primeval way that this was war and there could only
be one survivor? Man to man this time, or more accurately, superior man to mole.
To the death.
Another torrent of dirt sloughed off the mound
onto his shoe as if the mole signaled its acceptance of the terms and the
challenge of combat. “To the death, then.”
Eli
ran to the garage and picked up the round-nosed shovel. He probably wouldn’t
need its sharp digging point or edge, the soil in the mound was soft and
friable. But he thought it looked more like a weapon, and more represented the
state of war, than the more tranquil looking square-nosed shovel. With his
assault tool firmly gripped in his hands, he returned to the front yard.
He pierced the massive mound with the tip
of the shovel and tore out the first shovelful of loose earth, “the first of many” he thought, “the first volley, the shovel heard round the
world.” But even as he applied the shovel load of dirt to the now vacant
flower bed, another clump of dirt welled from inside the mound and the dirt
that cascaded down from this new encroachment filled the small hole Eli had
just made with the shovel. He couldn’t even see the telltale void that testified
he had begun to dismantle the horrible obelisk-like mound before him.
It
was like a slap across his face. Like the rodents had thrown the gauntlet at
his feet. The mole, responding to his challenge, as if to say, “You want war? Then war it is.”
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| War! |
The only way to stop this madness is to confront
the enemy on its own territory. Go straight to the source and eliminate the
rodent itself. No more dancing around the edges by removing the telltale mounds
for aesthetics. No! He would dig up the mole and end this ongoing struggle of
man against nature when he stood victorious over his foe’s mangled and lifeless
body.
Eli dug into the mound with reckless
abandon, he no longer carefully applied to the garden the dirt he shoveled from
the mound, he flung it willy nilly, heedless of where it landed, in a headlong rush
to reach and beat to death the vermin responsible for this unsightly pimple on his
front yard’s smooth face.
Bob, his next door neighbor, casually
noticed Eli digging in the yard. Bob had watched with mild amusement over the
last five months as Eli tried a variety of tactics to stop the gopher’s ongoing
tunneling and mounding. Some days Bob, and Gertie his wife, sat comfortably in
their home at the breakfast table and commented on Eli’s antics.
This morning there was more to it, and the
weather was warm.
Bob could almost sense the desperation in
Eli’s frenzied digging. He almost felt a maniacal aggression as he watched Eli flinging
dirt from a large mound over his shoulder without concern for where the loose
earth landed. Some of the dirt settled onto Eli’s head, fouling his hair, some
onto his shoulders turning the white shirt he wore an earth tone beige. For
Bob, the frenetic expenditure of energy and mechanized onslaught by Eli and his
shovel epitomized man’s desperate attempt to assert dominion over the earth and
its creatures.
Bob did the only thing that made sense to him;
he went into his house, obtained the appropriate tool, and returned to his own
front yard. He carefully opened the two-seater lawn chair, set it where he had
an unobstructed view of Eli’s onslaught, and sat down.
Moments later Gertie, a gorgeous woman by
any standard, brought out to him a cup filled with a mixture of freshly brewed espresso
and chocolate. In her other hand she held a decadently rich chocolate frosting covered
chocolate donut. He gratefully accepted the proffered items, like a king might
accept a sacrifice from his priest. He pointed toward Eli, looked up at her,
and then patted the empty space next to him on the double lawn chair motioning
her to sit with him.
She turned and went back into the house.
Moments later, she emerged from the
sliding glass door with her own cup of coffee, and an insulated coffee pot. Balanced
atop her cup a small plate bore a coconut encrusted, chocolate frosted, cake
donut. She nodded in Eli’s direction. Bob nodded to her as if to say, “Yep, the morning show is on schedule.”
When Eli glanced over at his neighbor’s
yard, just a quick glance of course, there was serious work to do and he was
not to be interrupted, and it’s impolite to stare, he noticed Bob and Gertie
sitting in their lawn chair for two in the middle of their yard. A yard he
noted, devoid of mole activity. He wondered, momentarily, what they did to keep
the varmints at bay, and he thought for just an instant what dark concessions
they might have made to leave their yard untouched while his was consistently
plagued by mole holes.
Gertie placed her cup into the chair’s arm
cup holder, she laid the pot on the grass at her husband’s feet, and gracefully
seated herself next to Bob on the chair. She removed the plate from on top of
her cup. The condensation from the bottom of the plate dripped lightly onto her
thighs. She brushed it off absentmindedly.
She brought the cup close to her face and inhaled
the potent aroma of the fresh brew now released from its captivity. The steam from
the cup curled around her face as she inhaled. The tendrils were like
appreciative little ghosts who flowed gently across her smooth skin and glided
willingly into her nostrils as she inhaled. Then she took a sip. The dark brown
liquid flowed smoothly across her full red lips and disappeared into her
sensuous mouth.
Eli realized he was staring. He had
stopped his mindless onslaught into the mound and was transfixed by Gertie’s
breakfasting. “Good morning.” He said. He was suddenly uncomfortable at his
boorish fascination.
Bob and Gertie stared back at him. Neither
of them said anything in response, but they both waved, the way one might wave
at an imbecile one is trying to humor.
Gertie took a bite of her donut. The white
coconut contrasted starkly against her vibrant red lips.
Eli shook his head to clear it and
realized he was now standing knee deep in the outer edge of the still growing mole
mound of dirt. He returned to his headlong plunge in an attempt to reach the
hole of origination hidden somewhere in the center of the mound. Bob and Gertie
could hear him yelling into the dirt, “I’ll get you. You just wait, I’m gonna
smash you like a bug on a windshield. I’m gonna chop you up and feed you to the
birds. You listening, I’m coming for you. You’re gonna die. You won’t see
another day dawn.”
Bob and Gertie enjoyed their breakfast as
they watched the ‘Eli show’ as they
had come to call it. They ate without saying a word except when Gertie asked,
“More coffee?” Bob picked up the pot, refilled her cup, then his own. They were
fascinated as Eli dug an ever-widening hole in his front yard grass. Eli’s
ranting became softer and harder to hear as he wore himself out flailing in the
dirt with his shovel.
Eli stooped as he dug to avoid brushing his
hair against the dirt that now formed a small canopy over him and he had to be
mindful of the gash walls so he didn’t bang his elbows against them as he
shoveled.
Then the overhang collapsed and Eli was instantly
chest deep in dirt. With a few more shovels full he had hoped to reach the
hole, instead, like a chess knight so focused on taking the opposing bishop, he
didn’t realize the potential danger until it was too late. He was trapped, his
arms pinned to his sides, and the dirt pressed against his chest making it hard
to breathe. He heard a low rumbling noise, like the deep bass rumble he could
more feel than actually hear that penetrated walls and shook his eardrums that
most often emanated from those annoying cars with speakers the size of a small
cow.
Then a bit of earth nudged up toward him from
the mound and rested higher against his chest, another covered more of his
chest. Then the dirt packed against his neck. He began to panic. “A little help
here please.” He said. He strained his eyes toward Bob and Gertie. He could no
longer move his head. The dirt had risen to block his head from turning, like a
cervical collar. His voice was little more than a whisper. Between the dirt
pressing against his throat and the pressure against his chest, he couldn’t
call out.
Bob and Gertie, watched Eli standing in
his yard looking like he was peeking over a fence. They had no idea what Eli
was doing, nor could they hear his whisper for help. Bob poured more coffee
into their cups.
Eli felt as though he was wrapped in an earthen
straightjacket. He couldn’t move, and the dirt was filling his mouth. He
struggled to get out. His struggling only compacted the earth around him. He
could no longer breathe. He stopped moving. At first, he just stood motionless
in the middle of the wide bare spot in his grass. It seemed to Bob and Gertie
as though Eli was contemplating what his next assault on the hapless rodent
would be. They waited for him to either go back to digging or to give up and
start to repair the damage he’d done to his lawn. It was beginning to be an
eyesore with all the holes. They watched Eli slowly collapse onto the mound
like an ice cube melting in the hot sun until he was lying face down on the
patch of loose shoveled dirt that used to be the middle of his front lawn.
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| Victory Dance! |
Eli’s wife came running out of their house
still dressed in her nurse’s scrubs. She rushed to Eli and checked his pulse.
Bob and Gertie watched. Eli’s wife noticed the couple and waved to them, “He’s
okay.”
When
Eli didn’t get up and do anything else, Bob popped the last bits of donut into his
mouth. “Show’s over,” he said.
Gertie continued watching Eli and his
wife. “I guess,” she said. “It was really different today, but not the
strangest thing Eli’s ever done.” Eli just lay on the ground staring into the dirt.
His eyes were closed, and his wife was talking to him, but he didn’t answer.
Eli’s wife noticed Gertie and Bob were still
watching, she waved again, “He’s okay, no reason to be alarmed, he’s just
overdone it a little, I think.”
Eli heard voices from outside the mound. Someone
was out there. He tried to call out for help, but there was no air, and his
lungs were filling with dirt, loose, fragrant, mole-dug earth. Someone will try to dig me out, but will
they get to me in time?
He couldn’t see the dirt. It was deep-hole
dark, cold, and smelled of earth... and mole.
Bob drank down the last of his espresso
and chocolate.
Gertie gathered up the cups and dishes, Bob
folded up the lawn chair, and picked up the coffee pot. Gertie was ahead of Bob
when they reached the sliding glass door. She looked back over her shoulder, and
saw Eli’s wife still crouched over Eli, he hadn’t moved.
“Should we call the police, or an
ambulance, or something?” Gertie asked.
“And tell them what?”
