The Nasdaq Jumped 200 Points Yesterday
By Shane Inman
My roommates and I have been digging a grave in our basement. We don't need it right away (we're still young and strong and able to create value for shareholders) but eventually it'll come in handy. The concrete was the hard part, chipping away at it with pickaxes like prospectors of old. We hefted a TV downstairs and put on the news for motivation. Death toll, community spread. Pundits speculating about how many Americans should be executed to boost the Dow.
I should clarify that the grave has little to do with the virus and more to do with what lurks behind the slick graphics on the screen. That crocodile in the shape of a nation. The scale on which our hearts are weighed against bars of gold and the hearts are always heavier.
We hit a pipe yesterday and cold water burst forth, smelling of lead. The contaminated spray soothed our bare arms and sweat-soaked brows. The flow stopped when it reached our shins and our landlord sent us a bill for excess water usage. We switched to shovels then, dredging thick muck and tossing it aside. Water sloshed against an outlet. The TV died and the cord caught fire; a small mercy for which we were all thankful.
We're nearly finished now. The hole isn't six feet, but should be enough for the three of us. We talked at first about separate graves, but where's the efficiency in that? When it's our turn to feed the beast, just kick us in and cover us so we don't spread anything. But please remember to put coins in our mouths to pay the ferryman. No room in the afterlife for freeloaders.
Shane Inman is an MFA candidate at New Mexico State University, where he works as the managing editor for Puerto del Sol. His work has received the Frank Waters Fiction Prize, been a finalist for the AWP Intro Journal Awards, and appeared in Mud Season Review and Shoreline.