The sun was a thick orange over the red harmattan, foggy mist, dust of the Limpopo province when Elias first accepted the task with so much courage. In his village, to undertake the final rites for the dead was not a job for the faint of heart, it was a sacred duty, it was like a final conversation between the living and the soil. Elias was the village’s youngest undertaker, a man of steady hands and silent prayers. He believed that if you dug the earth with enough respect, the ancestors would be merciful to the dead and also to the person burying the dead when their own time comes.
Then came the black plague. It moved through the village like the wind, like a dry wind through thatch, turning vibrant and bold voices into whispers, whispers of despair and hopelessness. Soon, the village council approached Elias with a burden no man should carry alone. They asked him to undertake the burial of the chief’s youngest daughter, Zanda. Elias had loved Zanda in the quiet way. He had saved a string of beads to give her when the harvest came. Now, he was saving a plot of land. She had succumbed to the disease.
The ground was baked hard and looked cracked made by a relentless drought. Each strike of his pickaxe echoed. He worked through the night, his skin glistening with sweat and clay, refusing help. To undertake this specific grave was his final gift to her a way to hold her one last time, even if it was only through the weight of the shovel. As dawn broke, Elias threw the first handful of red soil, the rhythm of his own life seemed to break. The drought, the plague, the weight of a hundred graves he had dug that month finally settled into his bones. He realized that in his rush to undertake the care of the dead, he had forgotten to look at the living. He looked at his hands stained so deeply with the red earth that they no longer looked like skin.
He looked at the horizon, where more smoke rose from more plague stricken huts. He had carved a perfect resting place for the girl he loved, but as he patted the mound flat, he realized he was the only one left with the strength to weep. The village was a ghost of itself. He had buried his future in a hole he dug with his own hands, and as the vultures began to circle the next hut, Elias sat on the fresh mound and waited for the plague to finally take the only man left to bury him.