The Earth Moves

Outside The Walls

When the dirt falls it makes a gentle sound and yet the action of digging is everything but gentle. His muscles ache from the labour and his flesh itches in the new spring sun. If there was any other way he would not be here, he is sure of that; that if nothing else.

There are days when he is not sure of his age or his name or how he came to be here although he understands that legacy is the remains of the pit of depression. Of behaviour driven so far from society's edges that he wanted, no needed, to cease to exist. In those days he had stopped talking, stopped eating for a while, until they'd come to sweep the streets in advance of the royal visit.

His spade has made a callous on the heel of his hand and a fresh blister in his palm. With his mouth to the fluid filled edge of it he bites, feels the white cells, their slight salt begin to form and flow. He notices that his fingers are still quick, detailed in their movement, discerning in their precision. A strange life from some other time, picking and propagating; a land of hybrids and trials. A scientist's logic, a gardener's heart and an artist's soul. Years in a seed factory; supplying uniformity to the chaotic world around. The blistered skin softens under saliva and he stops; knowing now it will heal.

He allows a short time to lean back, feel warmth on his face and look round at the trench he has dug. Thirty six feet by thirty six feet almost. Eight feet short on this side and eighteen inches deep all round. It worries him that he has no concept of how long this will take him or how quickly the winter will come. But that is for the evenings. For another hour he digs. The repetitive dullness of methodic work when there is no one to share it with.

He knows he will have to walk back to the hotel tonight. The sun sets later each evening; a few minutes gained for more work. To wish that there was something else to do first is hopeless. But he does it anyway. The strain to his side deepens and he looks round the perimeter of his site, mentally gathering his things together before departure. The better sweater, a sandwich tin and the spade. Anti-clockwise, towards the sun, he collects them. Walks.

Probably fifteen years ago the hotel, hostel, motel (call it what you will) might have looked intense, well designed. Modern. Now the pale wood is home to upwardly mobile black rot, jackdaws occupy the heating vents and cockroaches cover walls with a moving carpet in the dark. As he walks towards it he counts fifteen rooms lit across the first two floors. The other rooms, the higher floors, remain dark; the haunt of hormone driven teenagers from town who seem to know fear and daring as the only acceptable high. (And he knows at least that part of his life was easier.) He keeps a thick string in his pocket to tie the spade across his shoulders; leaving his hands free and ready.

The path down the hill to the reception area crunches with the free gravel that remains on the plastic liner of a landscape scheme that has slipped. Each of the rocks and many of the bricks he has freed from their light cement moorings and stored them away. Others have taken the light fittings. (He is not far enough on for considering such things.) By the door Robert stands on guard. Nods. He passes him his dues; today three cornish pasties from the newsagents at the head of the harbour. It's a long walk round in the morning but a part of his standard barter since he came here. He has no idea how the others pay Robert but the tariff seems acceptable; he allows him past.
There are no drunken bodies by now; they are all out for a refill. Inside the hotel there are no rules other than Robert's; what he allows.
The room he occupies looks out on to a dry ornamental lake. It is lower than the jackdaws and rutting pigeons; beneath the first concrete plinth where the rich teens will try their first silly stunts. They provide Robert with cash. He allows access to the top five floors and the ledges where they will make like superman, or batman. Or not. If they fall Robert will assist. Their friends will flee. A bad fall during the last of the ice and the body went over the edge of the cliff. No questions asked. Robert paid him for helping with that one. It bought the spade.
The bed eases silently beneath him and sleep is a long, temporary death. He wants for nothing finer and is content to be free.
When he wakes there are no mirrors, no tea, no pills. He lays there until it becomes acceptable to move. His back aches but that is all. A good day. He sees sunlight first and gauges he chemistry of his brain as positive. He moves to one side, leans his hip to the thin bed.
Today his barter run will bring payment for the room; again. Then he will confirm, not for the first time, that the proper hotel in town, inside the city walls, has no morals and will pay in china for the bricks he stole from their rivals. He's pledged his own labour in exchange for the bricks getting to his house site at the end of the week.
The walk by the campsite reveals unwary tourists pitching a decent tent. This afternoon while they walk and the farmer drinks he'll come back. He'll need something like that when he leaves the hotel at the end of the week to guard his bricks.
One Thursday afternoon there's an election. He can't vote; he has no address yet, his house outside the town walls remains unbuilt.