The Landscaper

Sweat drenched my shirt as the sun beat down on me. I swiped at my forehead, wiping away beads of sweat and leaving a trail of dirt in their place.

I looked down at the hole in front of me. Not quite deep enough for what I needed it for, but already too deep for landscaping. I would know. Landscaping was my day job.

“Would you like some lemonade?” the homeowner called. She was a sweet, middle-aged woman. If I could, I would’ve felt bad about what I was going to leave buried under her lawn. But then again, if I felt bad for all my clients, I would never get any work done.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said as I took a glass from her tray.

She looked over the edge of the hole I’d just climbed out of and then back at the sapling on the side of the road. “Why is it so deep?”

I took a long drink from my glass. “I bury dead pigs under all the saplings I plant. Helps ‘em grow. Stinks to high heaven, though, so I gotta put ‘em deep down.”

She shot a nervous glance toward my van, no doubt imagining the dead “pig” in the back. Taking a few steps back, she forced a smile. “I’ll let you get back to it, then.”

She disappeared inside the house. Once the door was closed, I hopped back down in the hole. I needed to get my “pig” in the ground now, before she did something I couldn’t forgive. There was only room for one “pig” in this hole.

The sun inched across the sky, and I dug deeper into the earth. The dirt walls rose around me as the hole grew until I couldn’t see over the sides anymore. It was finally deep enough.

I scrambled over the side of the hole, hauling my body onto the grass. I looked over at the house. The homeowner wasn’t lurking in any windows or on the porch.

I glanced around the street again before opening the back of my van. A pair of dead eyes stared back at me, long hair splayed across the bottom of the van.

Cursing under my breath, I shoved the head back into the burlap sack. I tied off the top of the bag and hoisted the body out of the van. I carried it on my back, hunching a bit to make it easier to carry.

When I got to the hole, I dumped the bag in. The body thumped on the ground, and I shoveled dirt over it.

The homeowner came out then, holding more lemonade. She saw that the back of my van was open and hurried back inside. It was better for her that way.

With the hard part done, it didn’t take me long to fill in the hole and plant the sapling. Once that was done, I went about landscaping, just like a normal one would have all along.