The prompt song was:
Ain't No Grave by Johnny Cash
Merrick glanced up from
under sweaty bangs at the dirt road ahead. There was still a way to go. The
load was heavy and kept catching on rocks, but he had a good stride going, a
rhythmic swish as he pulled it along behind him; it wouldn’t be long now.
His eyes remained on the rocky road just a few feet in front
of him, his mind elsewhere. The sweat ran down his nose and flew off the end in
spatters. He wasn’t going to stop. Twilight was drawing to an end and he needed
to get this load disposed of before full dark.
As his boots scuffed the road, their sound worked to
dissipate the voices that wouldn’t let up inside his head. He knew he’d done
wrong. He knew this wouldn’t be the last of it, but he hoped it might be. They
taunted him, telling him what he should and shouldn’t do, but they weren’t his
ma or his pa, they were long gone. He was in charge now and this is how he did
things.
Arguing was pointless. A part of him knew it was the voice
of righteousness within him trying to bring his morality back on track. But it
should know better. He lost that the night he had to end his own brother’s
life. Either that or listen to a man tortured by his own addictions -
addictions he had chosen over his beaten wife and bullied children. Everyone
was better off. Or so he told himself.
Merrick topped the rise of
the road and paused, taking a breath. He looked over the barren valley. Yes it
was green, but it was empty. There were no trees, no hedgerows and no wildlife.
He looked down into the gully and in the dimming light just made out the top of
the headstone.
Now it was in sight the load seemed to be heavier, not
lighter - even though he was travelling downhill. The voices in his head seemed
to escalate, but there was no going back now.
He cut off the road and walked down across the field, his
load sliding better on the grass. He saw the little fenced off square, and the
handful of gravestones circling the large tombstone that belonged to the head
of the family – his great grandpa. The shovel was still upright in the ground
where he’d left it that morning, next to the freshly dug grave.
He’d already known it was time. She’d been in pain long
enough, and no matter how much he talked to his son on the phone he couldn’t
get him to come and visit. And she was so stubborn she wouldn’t go without
saying goodbye, so he’d said it for her. He wanted to knock heads together, but
that was never going to happen now.
He swung the load round and dropped it into the grave. It
fell easily. It wasn’t heavy; her body just bones after the cancer had gnawed
at them. The weight was in his mind as the voices criticised his decision. But
he’d rather live with that torment, than watch her suffer one more day. Enough
was enough.
He threw in a handful of dirt and begged her forgiveness, as
he picked up and started shovelling, finishing the day as he had started it.
In aid of National Flash Fiction Day, which takes place on the 27th of June, I wrote for the Flash Flood Journal, an international flash-fiction journal created by writers and edited by a team of volunteer editors on behalf of National Flash-Fiction Day. Every 10 minutes a new piece of Flash is put on the Flash Flood Journal for the full 24 hours of Flash Fiction day.
My entry 'Prickly Fingers' went up this afternoon. This is a piece I already had and I reworked it for this submission. It is very dark - as usual. You can read it here.
There are some awesome piece in a variety of genres, some worth checking out are:
Susi Holliday's - First Love
Catherine Connolly's - Her Doors Unlocked
A.J Walker's - The Lion's Share of the Cleaning