The Birth Diggers

"Hey Ed, did ya hear? They said there's other universes out there."

Ed Vigna looked up from his tablet. Rob had been his coworker for years now, and he'd been a huge fan of these science podcasts. Often he annoyed Ed with speculation that seemed like so much philosophical hallucination.

"Yeah," Ed replied, trying to keep his eyes from crossing. These scientists and their proclamations made him feel like his mind would overheat.

"No," Rob continued. "They say how our universe is mostly antimatter, there's universes out there that are mostly matter."

Now that was something Ed had heard, strangely enough. "Oh!" Ed exclaimed. "It was that Science Weekly With Doc Bob Evers."

"Right!" Rob said, pointing. "They say that since matter has all these different properties to antimatter, a universe of almost all matter would have time flowing opposite ours!"

Ed let out a bark of a laugh, then had to fumble not to drop his tablet. He tried to imagine life in a universe where time flowed in the opposite direction.

"So," Ed speculated, "babies would come out of their mothers, go from young to old, and then die and be buried?"

Rob burst out laughing at the sheer absurdity of it. "Uh-huh!" he cried. "And people would go to school to gain knowledge."

"Alright, alright," Ed said. "Enough lollygagging around. It's happening. Time to get to work."

They grabbed their shovels and examined Ed's tablet computer. "You see which one?"

Ed ignored Rob's question and moved the screen around. Finally, he saw the signs of dirt being disturbed. "There!" he shouted. "Two rows over!"

They hoisted their shovels onto their shoulders and jogged over to the section of the Birthyard. As birth diggers, it was their responsibility to unearth the recently born.

Sweat poured and their backs ached as they shoveled the ground away. ‘This job was a lot harder just a few years ago,’ thought Ed, driving his tool into the ground with a kick.

The hard work brought back fond memories of his old age. His earliest memories were of being on hospice care, which was a typical early life thing, until enough time had passed that he gained the ability to live on his own.

It was then that he met his children for the first time. They’d lived with him during his retirement, but eventually, he’d gotten young enough to have to go to work.

As he drove the shovel in and removed more packed Earth, he remembered with fondness how difficult the work was near the beginning, as his arthritis had been quite bad at the time. With the passage of time, his joints ached less and less, and his flesh had gotten less splotchy and his hair had come in.

‘Can’t beat time, I guess,’ he thought, continuing to shovel.

“How’s the ex-wife?” Rob asked, removing a section of dirt.

“Wife, now,” Ed corrected.

“Ah, got it,” Rob said. “Marriage is a strange thing. You know my wife was born just a few years ago?”

“Hmm,” Ed agreed, shoveling. “That’s too bad.”

People were born at different ages. Some had the misfortune of coming out of their casket while still relatively young. They wouldn’t have much time on Earth, and the thought often made the job hard to handle.

“Eh, she’ll still live pretty long,” Rob replied.

Ed couldn’t help but think of the fact that some people met their spouses when one or the other was unearthed. Others, like he, found themselves one day in divorce court, finding the partner they’d spend the majority of their life with.

“I remember our first years together,” Ed said. “We fought like no tomorrow. It was hell.”

“What happened?” Rob asked, looking up from the shoveling.

“We eventually figured it out,” Ed explained.

Time truly was a monster. Ed didn’t have to be reminded of that. Sure, his wife and he might have many good years together, but at some point, they’ll be too young. They’ll have a marriage ceremony, and there might be several months of dating after that, but that’ll be it.

‘There’ll come a day,’ he knew, ‘when we meet for the first time, and that’ll be the end of our marriage.’

“Something wrong?” Rob asked.

Ed shook his head. “No,” he said. “Just keep going. I can almost see the casket.”

“I can’t help but think about death, at times like this,” Rob admitted. The shovel made a solid “thunk” sound as it hit the metal roof of the casket.

“Yeah,” Ed admitted, “me too.” He scraped dirt off the casket lid and began throwing it out of the hole.

It was ironic, Ed felt, that here, in the birthyard, he’d be reminded of death. But he’d been to the hospital and he’d seen what happens at the end of life. As people got younger and younger, their bodies got first stronger and prettier, and then smaller and smaller.

Finally, he’d seen, the person reaches the bitter end. Their bodies were smaller than a watermelon. Their limbs were short and stubby. The babies they’d become were unable to so much as look after themselves.

Finally, one day, the grim reaper would get his prize. The person’s mother would be brought into the hospital, belly all swollen, and the infant would go into her body.

“The end,” Ed whispered, lost in thought.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Here, help me bring up the casket.”

They climbed out of the hole and strolled back over to the shed to retrieve the raising mechanism. Another fifteen minutes, and they had the casket sitting on solid ground.

Rob couldn’t help but sneak a peek. Tilting the lid open, he said, “Wow, this woman’s really old.”

Ed took a look. He let out a whistle. “Wow! She’s got a long life ahead of her.”

Rob let out a laugh. “We’ll probably both be in our mothers’ bellies before she’s even young,” he said.

Ed shook his head. “The mysteries of life,” he replied.

Rob pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Yeah, it’s Robert Mulvino,” he explained. “We’ve got a corpse ready for autopsy. Looks in good condition, will probably revive shortly after her organs are back in her and her blood’s put back in.” He glanced at the birthstone over the hole. “Name’s Nadine Everhart. Yes. Thank you.” He turned to Ed. “They’ll be here in a half hour to pick up the casket.”

Ed let out a relieved sigh. “Great,” he said. “I feel a hangover coming on.”

“Me too,” Rob admitted. “I wonder how much we’ll have to drink this time to make it go away.”

Ed laughed. “Drinking’s fine,” he joked. “It’s the sobriety after that’s the hard part.”