Burial Plot

Out across the fields near here there are endless, hidden wells deeper than you can comfortably imagine. Each of these wells originally had different purposes. 

These pock marks in the earth, oh, where they may lead you. Do not dig too eagerly, no matter how deeply. It could all fall right out from under you.

Some wells start out as mine shafts before water or oil is struck. Some start high above us upon limestone shelves and they then burrow hundreds of feet into the crust of the earth below us.

Some even still are no larger around than a fist, while some others are large enough to hide at least one cadaver, or a car with any number of body count.

Each of these burrows may have simply started, again, as an exploration of the ground to excavate water and minerals, while still others were designed with the specific intention of hiding secrets. 

This or that can be found underground, whether they were waiting below to be found, or placed below never to be spoken of again. Secrets, secrets, and still more secrets below. You will never know what secrets. 

The people here guard their deeds more discretely than even these inanimate pits. There is no way of knowing what transpired before the digging and by the time any discovery of evidence may be made in a retrieval effort, surely too much time will have passed for anyone still left above to be concerned with what was discovered below.

There are legends, contained within these pits; legends which foretell that should one cross the wrong Other, down the shaft one shall soon go. There is no wrong or right, simply staying alive long enough to die peacefully and without molestation. 

Peace escapes many of us, should we choose to make something of ourselves. How you make yourself, what you choose to become, where you intend to go; all of these problems are solvable by depth.

What these pits make you eventually is a memory unspeakable. An example to others. A lesson to be learned. An opaque, muddled, confused warning to no one in particular. 

Beyond the lesson, the fear compels one even more so. We each long for our own, and while we do not choose this evil of the land, it chooses us per our longing. The land yearns for bodies to fill itself. Yearn for yourself to remain above or find yourself far, far asunder.

Down is the new up ‘round these parts. There is not an answer I can give you that will satisfy curiosity as to the ‘why’ clearly, as even the ‘how’ is a bit vague. I did not choose this place, this place chose me. 

We cannot go back up from here as this is now where we are. We were drawn in as much as we called out for our individuality. Look where our goals got us; right down the rabbit hole. The earth is more hollow than our souls.

Souls combined only in our end. I have not even told you what is happening to you and I. We are gone forever. If you are here with me, you are no longer on the right side of things. You are down, down, down…quite bad. 

If you could find your body around here you would not want it back. Used, neglected, pummeled, and consumed by time and pressure and decay.

You have become one of us! Surely there are many of us here and surely many more to come. Do not struggle, dare not fight, best not to hope. 

Once you are down, there is no up and at ‘em, buddy-oh. So relax, take a load off, settle in. And while I have you here, have you heard The Good Word?

“Bastard Countryside”, Robin Friend, 2018.