The Grave Digger

It had started small and simple – just a couple of knocks, as soft as the whistle of sand seeping down an hourglass. It had started small – in the beginning, Edgar ignored the knocks, blaming it on air creaking in from a shallow crack in the attic. And simple – but the knock got louder and louder until entire oceans were crashing against the shore around him, scratching his frail skin, pounding his withering consciousness. It had started small and simple – yet here was poor Edgar, naked, with a shovel. Here was poor Edgar digging his grave. 

Edgar stormed into the attic, one hand pinching his nose shut and the other grappling in the dark like a fierce navigator. Streetlight barged in through the tiny window on the other side of the attic, cascading off cobwebs onto trunks and crates dissonantly scattered on the floor. Edgar squinted his eyes, his vision already blurry at three past midnight. The window was sealed shut, and the musty air reeking of mildew made it clear that nothing had entered the attic since Edgar moved in a month ago. “Not the attic,” Edgar murmured to himself.

Maybe the knocking came from downstairs. The kitchen? Edgar scampered downstairs, limbs loosely dangling, careful not to trip on bottles opened and unopened. He’d clean the mess later, he promised himself. Hesitantly, Edgar turned on the light and rubbed his eyes. Nothing. Edgar shook the dining chairs. He closed his cabinets. He rattled the fridge. Everything seemed sturdy. “Fuck off,” Edgar said to no one, climbing lugubriously to the first floor, smacking the bedroom door shut behind him and pouncing onto his bed. He drew his bedsheet over his head and reminded himself that his situation could not worsen.

Edgar’s shovel cracks through the firm soil, clawing it apart like a mangy, rabid beast skinning its victim. His eyes have a certain menace, the borders blackened by wild strokes of creases. In the bitter cold of the night, against the echoes of an old railcar rushing past a few blocks away from his house, Edgar’s skin is peeling away like chipped paint. Eddies of tired breath match the rise and fall of his shoulders – all of a sudden, the shovel bangs something solid and brisque.  

The raindrops splattering outside the bus window offered Edgar a silent escape into a world where everything felt softer and more forgiving. Yet when, moments later, someone dropped their bottle, and a loud clank reverberated through the bus, Edgar jerked his head towards the noise with widened eyes, veins bulging from his temples. He gritted his teeth as the comfort of raindrops faded to the haunting echo of four knocks that rattled his bones. For the last week, the incessant repetition of four knocks at three past midnight has only gotten louder and louder, jostling him from his sleep. The problem lay not in the knocks itself but in the fact that no matter how hard Edgar tried to find where they came from, he ended up empty-handed.

Edgar believed in establishing an order in the world around him. Things needed to have a reason to happen. It is why he was so hesitant about having roommates, why every room in his new apartment locked twice, or why the five clocks in his apartment all ticked together. Control meant survival; things that couldn’t be controlled were things that could abandon and ruin you. Loosening the grip over one aspect of his life meant letting go of the wheel entirely. Not knowing where the four knocks came from meant that something in his house was broken. It meant something in Edgar’s life was broken. And that was unacceptable.

Edgar howls as he drops to his knees and sinks his nails to squirm apart the final few girths of mud.

Edgar punched his wall, holding back a gut-wrenching scream so as not to upset his neighbors. Muttering to himself and chuckling deliriously, he paced around the room. He took deep breaths and hooked his trembling hands onto his waist. “It’s all real,” Edgar reminded himself. Edgar had no way of describing the four horrible knocks except knowing that they seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The knocks made his heart flutter like a bird trapped in a cage or like a dragonfly trapped in a spider’s webbing.

With the mud cleared away, Edgar finds himself staring at a coffin.

“Yeah, it keeps getting louder and louder,” Edgar complained, sipping his sixth cup of coffee. He leaned against the counter and threw his head behind in disdain.

“Maybe it’s a ghost,” Ari said, pouring a cup next to Edgar.

 “Come over some night, and you’ll hear it too,” Edgar said, gawking lugubriously at the office cabinets above him.

“That’s a very poor pick-up line, Edgar,” Ari blushed, squeezing Edgar’s arms with a coquettish grin.

“This is not a joke! I’m not trying to pick you up!” Edgar pushed Ari’s hand apart.

“Fine! But you don’t have to be a dick about it,” Ari grumbled, annoyed and cherry-faced.

Edgar sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just that the noise really does something to me. I know I shouldn’t be so flustered, but it drives me nuts. It’s like someone’s buried in my walls. Ari, you know my family history…I don’t want to go through the same thing again.” An idea popped into Edgar’s head. “Actually, how about you come over? I’m sorry, but we could both use a break with everything going around. I would…yeah, I would love to spend more time with you. Let me cook dinner, okay?”

The coffin glimmers against the moonlight. With a heavy grunt, Edgar lifts it off the pit, placing it vertically. He is slightly taken aback by how light the coffin feels to lift. Almost like it is empty. Like it is still waiting for someone dead to hurry inside.

Edgar’s fingers fumbled over the buttons of her blouse, her breath tingling warmly against his skin. Ari braced her legs around his hips, one hand tightening around his neck and the other ruffling his hair. Her lips drew closer, playfully biting the top of his. If not for what was about to haul Edgar’s sanity over the roof, he might have actually enjoyed this. It had been hard to convince Ari to stay awake until three after midnight, but the promise of a dinner on a Friday usually meant not sleeping in the first place. Ari grabbed Edgar’s hands and moved them to her waist. Edgar’s eyes settled on his watch. Any minute now. Edgar turned pale. Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! Four knocks! There it was! Ari moaned as Edgar cupped her face, manically asking, “Did you hear that?”

“Babe, are you okay? Do you want to try a different position?” Ari said, slightly out of breath.

“No! The sex is great…you are great! But did you hear it? Did you hear the noise?”

“What noise?”

“The four knocks! Goddamnit!” Edgar was shaking her now.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ari asked quizzically, tying her hair back into a knot.

“The knocks I told you about at the office. You said they weren’t real!”

Ari pulled herself away, staring at Edgar in disbelief. “Are you fucking serious?” she said softly.

“The noise!”

“I can’t believe you.”

“The noise!”

“You are an asshole. You know that? An utterly ridiculous piece of shit.” She leaped off the bed, scuttering away, grabbing her belongings and shirt along the way. “Wait!” Edgar squealed, wrapping the bedsheet around his waist and stumbling after her. “You need to help me out!”

“I can’t deal with you right now.”

“But the noise!” Edgar cried helplessly. “I think it came from the walls this time.”

“Yeah?” Ari walked up to him, slapping him across the face. “Then fucking dig your walls. And while you’re at it, bury yourself in them.” She stormed away. Edgar banged his head against the door. “Maybe I will,” he murmured as he stormed to his basement and grabbed a shovel.

Edgar opens the coffin and finds it empty. Nobody inside could have been knocking. Or could they? Edgar walks into the coffin.

Edgar’s house was a mess. Walls were paved open like new doorways, plaster shattered on the floor, wooden beams exposed, and frayed wires sparking as the lightbulbs shimmered on and off. Cabinets were overturned, and sofas rummaged through like treasure chests. In the middle of it all, Edgar stood grimy and sweaty, blood dripping everywhere. Blind rage kept sinking into the emptiness inside him. And then he heard it again. The four knocks. His wild eyes darted around the house until they settled onto the garden.

Slowly, then, still naked, he crawled towards the garden with a shovel grasped in his hands.

The coffin stretches into a long, suffocating hallway as soon as Edgar enters it. At first, Edgar does not believe his eyes. But a moment later, the fear of not understanding the world around him haunts him to keep going. To find out where he is. The hallway seems endless. Edgar keeps walking, the walls pressing tighter the further he goes. His palms are sweaty, and the air is moist. With each stride slower than before, Edgar knows that the entrance behind him is getting smaller. Soon, there will be no light. But turning back is not an option. Not now.

Each footstep now ripples across the silent hallways. Edgar’s breath quickens as he tries to keep his footsteps regular. His hands prod around for a clue, a pattern, anything to stitch the world back together. What is this hallway? Why is he here? Edgar hates how little he knows.

Suddenly, a fetid gush of wind rushes past him, rancid and cold, momentarily drawing him back to his senses. He realizes what the wind is about to do. With a thud, the entrance behind him closed, and darkness devoured him. There is no up or down. There is no right or left. There is no order. There is nothing.

A dry, sinister hiss fills the air as something begins to creep at his legs. Edgar cannot bend, for the walls have closed up on him. He is trapped. The tickling rises from his ankles to his calves and to his waist. Edgar pinches around his waist and feels his fingers run through something granular – sand. He realizes, then, that this is not a coffin. It is an hourglass. The sand climbs relentlessly, crushing his ribs and closing around his throat. He feels his pulse pound his ears. With what little space he has left, Edgar slams his head onto the inside of the coffin, helpless. With what little time Edgar has left, he realizes there is only one last thing he can control. Edgar can only knock.