Mighty Mango #2
There is a point, late at night, when the birds start chirping, and you realize it is now ridiculous to say it is "late at night," and is truly "very early in the morning." The sky isn't grey yet, but will be, soon; and who knows why the birds wake up so early?
The average human body is about six feet long and two feet wide. If you're trying to dig a hole sufficiently deep that no one will notice anything's there for a while, you need to go down around three feet. More, if there's time, but there usually isn't. That means burying someone requires you to move 6 x 2 x 6 = 72 cubic feet of dirt; at around half a shovelful of...
Well. I'm overthinking it.
"Rick," my brother says to me. "Keep digging, asshole. Jesus. Quit staring off into space. It's gonna be light soon."
I didn't say anything back, because there wasn't anything to say. I did just keep digging. If two people are digging at the same time, you really only have to each move 36 cubic feet of dirt, but you're slightly slowed down because you don't want your shovels to bump...
Overthinking again!
Everyone develops their own ways of coping with their job. I bet if you work on a ranch, and you have to kill cows and chickens and things, it grosses you out at first. Then you get over it. You know why? Because it's a job. Someone's going to do it, even if you don't, and high-minded moralizing isn't going to pay the bills. So you move past it, keep a firm upper lip, and all that bullshit. It's really not very different with my job.
I don't kill cows or chickens, though. The person I am presently burying is wearing what was once a very expensive suit. His hear is light grey and thinning, and he was wearing glasses when we shot him, although those got dropped somewhere. It doesn't matter, because not only will no one ever find the glasses, but our fingerprints aren't on them even if they did.
He is--was--a board member of Total Oil. It's a French oil company. Did you know that? I didn't, until recently. I found out because someone gave me a manilla file folder, with a photograph inside; and they said, "this guy works for Total Oil. It's a French oil company." In real life, when you're given orders to kill someone, there is nothing very dramatic about it, because it's just a job. No one sagely intones "make the hit, Rick," or "you know what to do." They just give you a file folder and inside is a printout from Yahoo! White Pages with the guy's address.
One thing my job does make me realize is how incredibly, terrifyingly unsafe the world is. Every day, we all walk down the street, out in the open, where any fringe environmentalist lunatic can grab or shoot us. This guy had no idea we were going to shoot him. I don't think he ever actually knew. We didn't walk up to him and announce his sins or anything dramatic like that; there's no point, because he's not going to live to tell anyone. The best way to shoot someone is to do it when they're not looking and can't see you, which is what we did; he was driving down the road toward his house after a late night at work and we were sitting on the side of the road and we shot him as he drove by.
His car careened off the side of the road and crashed. Did the crash kill him, or did the bullet? Well, we'll never know. With luck, they'll never find the body, and so no one will ever know but God, who we are really hoping will forgive us for this, but we figure he will.
It's just a job. If we don't do it, someone else will. Someone has got to make it undesirable to work as an oil executive, or, you know. The ice caps will melt, or something. Truthfully, I'm not a big ideologue, although I basically believe the survival of the species is threatened and everything. I'm just trying to do my job the best I can.
All done.
"You know, Cass," I say.
"What?"
"We're not kids anymore."
"I know. I'm tired."
The average human body is about six feet long and two feet wide. If you're trying to dig a hole sufficiently deep that no one will notice anything's there for a while, you need to go down around three feet. More, if there's time, but there usually isn't. That means burying someone requires you to move 6 x 2 x 6 = 72 cubic feet of dirt; at around half a shovelful of...
Well. I'm overthinking it.
"Rick," my brother says to me. "Keep digging, asshole. Jesus. Quit staring off into space. It's gonna be light soon."
I didn't say anything back, because there wasn't anything to say. I did just keep digging. If two people are digging at the same time, you really only have to each move 36 cubic feet of dirt, but you're slightly slowed down because you don't want your shovels to bump...
Overthinking again!
Everyone develops their own ways of coping with their job. I bet if you work on a ranch, and you have to kill cows and chickens and things, it grosses you out at first. Then you get over it. You know why? Because it's a job. Someone's going to do it, even if you don't, and high-minded moralizing isn't going to pay the bills. So you move past it, keep a firm upper lip, and all that bullshit. It's really not very different with my job.
I don't kill cows or chickens, though. The person I am presently burying is wearing what was once a very expensive suit. His hear is light grey and thinning, and he was wearing glasses when we shot him, although those got dropped somewhere. It doesn't matter, because not only will no one ever find the glasses, but our fingerprints aren't on them even if they did.
He is--was--a board member of Total Oil. It's a French oil company. Did you know that? I didn't, until recently. I found out because someone gave me a manilla file folder, with a photograph inside; and they said, "this guy works for Total Oil. It's a French oil company." In real life, when you're given orders to kill someone, there is nothing very dramatic about it, because it's just a job. No one sagely intones "make the hit, Rick," or "you know what to do." They just give you a file folder and inside is a printout from Yahoo! White Pages with the guy's address.
One thing my job does make me realize is how incredibly, terrifyingly unsafe the world is. Every day, we all walk down the street, out in the open, where any fringe environmentalist lunatic can grab or shoot us. This guy had no idea we were going to shoot him. I don't think he ever actually knew. We didn't walk up to him and announce his sins or anything dramatic like that; there's no point, because he's not going to live to tell anyone. The best way to shoot someone is to do it when they're not looking and can't see you, which is what we did; he was driving down the road toward his house after a late night at work and we were sitting on the side of the road and we shot him as he drove by.
His car careened off the side of the road and crashed. Did the crash kill him, or did the bullet? Well, we'll never know. With luck, they'll never find the body, and so no one will ever know but God, who we are really hoping will forgive us for this, but we figure he will.
It's just a job. If we don't do it, someone else will. Someone has got to make it undesirable to work as an oil executive, or, you know. The ice caps will melt, or something. Truthfully, I'm not a big ideologue, although I basically believe the survival of the species is threatened and everything. I'm just trying to do my job the best I can.
All done.
"You know, Cass," I say.
"What?"
"We're not kids anymore."
"I know. I'm tired."
posted by Anonymous at 5:54 AM
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