Recollection from a Life Half-Lived--I

* This is a work of fiction, but about 99.9% of it is from real life. 

  Stinging rays of radiation hit him on his back that was still lightly browned from a long summer of not wearing a shirt and the Fall that had proven to be more warmth than cold. He had been digging a long time; a day and a half to be exact. The hole seemed to be at a standstill now and the shoveling had grown dull and lonesome. He couldn't even look at Beau anymore. It was all too hard now. He had had him since he was 12 and today he was turning 19. He still felt 12 and wondered if he would ever feel any different. The sweat now poured profusely out of his body and stung his eyes and the many new cuts and blisters on his arms, hands, and legs and still he kept digging.

   He looked across the small field and Beau looked a little like he had when had first arrived. It was sad. The boy's emotions went from sadness to extreme anger. He hated so much of what life had become. It seemed to all culminate with him digging a grave; a horse-sized grave. His horse's grave. He hated the hole and he hated the digging. He wanted so badly to finish the hole and he wanted so badly to never finish the hole. When he finished, they would shoot Beau. He knew they needed to, but he hated the whole situation. Beau had been his, but now Beau was sick and he felt nothing, but guilt. He had ignored him for far too long. He had loved the horse so much. He had been his horse and no one would actual know what that truly felt like except for him. And to be honest, he had never been just a tan horse with a grandiose name acquired with money that had been earned doing chores around his parent's home. He had secretly named him as one of his closest friends when all of life becomes so awkward between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. And soon the sweat blinded the boy and fell down the handle of the wooden shovel and all the world took the shape of the hole and it began to grow deeper and deeper and it began to draw everything into itself and the cancer that was in the horse's sinus cavities grew into the hole and it began to kill everything it rooted itself into; except the boy who kept trying to dig. And all the world became digging and moved in the motion of a man who has become one with his spade, but the hole never got any deeper and the boy just kept digging at the earth that lay before him, but nothing ever stayed on the blade of the shovel.

   Later that night, they would shoot Beau. The boy's father would do it while the boy held the reins. Before he pulled the trigger, the father spoke in low, gentle tones and thanked the horse for loving his family and for being so kindly of a servant and a friend and lastly, the father pleadingly apologized to the horse for what he was about to do. The boy trembled and cried softy as his father's tender words hit his ears and he felt the coldness of the night and the coldness of his father's hands on the gun and on the horse's neck. So, did the father. The boy didn't remember the shot or how it had sounded so close to his ears and warm blood from the horse hit the boy's cheek and arm and the horse instantly fell, but he hadn't fallen into the hole like they had planned. So, they had to hook a rope to his reins and pull him into the middle of the hole with a tractor and the boy had, had to climb down into the hole and unhook the reins. The boy's younger sister helped them cover the horse and he had hated that she had been drafted to help. They worked quickly and quietly and the only sounds that were made were the sounds of metal moving hardened dirt, but they worked together because they were a family. After they had finished, they walked inside, washed up, changed clothes, got into the car loaded with luggage and drove north to the mountains to where they hoped to bury their memories deep into the hidden coves. They would all cry separately on the drive there and back, but it would be a crying that never really ended, just moved like a stream does when there is fresh water added to it in the late Spring from the melting snows, but dries up when summer is at full blaze. And they moved through the night speeding away from the hole and the boy remembered that it was his birthday.