edward awoke in a feverish delerium, a single thought nagging at his mind
dig
        dig
                dig
and so he dug his own grave thusly, and lay himself in it during the third moon
with vultures circling overhead, edward waited.

soon enough, the roots of nearby trees found him, and began burrowing into his skull.
edward thought tree thoughts.
finally, he said to himself,
         i have a place in this world.

he felt a rumble in the earth, and heard the crunching of gravel under tires.

he did not move when the door opened and slammed, or when he heard a soldier barking orders in hungarian.

'szallj ki, gyorsabban!'

the roots found his brainstem and took hold of his consciousness.

underneath the pulsing breath of the the trees, he heard the sound of terror
crying women and babies,
no, not my child

the smack of metal against flesh and bone.

he heard the gendarmes giving the orders to hand out shovels
to dig graves
how could anyone think that the ground is where dead things belong? whatever this crying is, it is surely alive, he thought.
the tree pulsed.

orders in romanian, then
'dig your graves.'

not a gasp escaped from the malnourished lips that edward could not see.
thudding of metal into dirt, then
'my flesh,' he thought,
they are hurting me
graben schneller, graben schneller
he writhed in agony, the trees showing their unhappiness with these steel intrusions of the body
then, at the top of his burrow, he saw something.
a face
a human face
the most human face in the entire world
afraid of edward more than of rifle fire
skin and bones and blackened eyes

and the digging ceased

orders, again, more orders and screams and cries
he saw a gendarme grip the jewess by the hair from behind
her eyes met edward's in one knowing second
one second without fear, or anger, or panic
ready
aim
fire

with a crack, edward observed something he would never feel for himself, as the earth shall never know it
the woman did not feel anything, not the bullet as it parted her skin, not the boot that shoved her into the hole that she had not dug herself
nothing but the sight of the ground rising to meet her at the bottom

the brain may die,
          but the heart persists

    with dirt falling upon them, each stared unseeingly into the eyes of the other

                                      hello, neighbor.