Dead of Night Diggers

“Are you sure this will work, Kyle?”

“Yeah. Trust me it will. Remember last winter when I won the lottery?”

“Yeah. That changed your entire life. Of course I remember.”

“Well, how do think I did it. I went back in time and changed the numbers on the ticket I bought to the ones I knew would win.”

“Really, it was that easy?”

“Piece of cake. You’ll be bouncing that little kid on your knee in no time.“

“Yeah, I hope so,” Jimmy says as he hops off the bus, “I really messed up back then. I can’t mess this up again.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here,” Kyle says as he gestures to an old man sitting in front of them in a lawn chair.

Jimmy looks the man up and down. This was not what he expected. For starters, he figured someone with the ability to time travel might be younger, or richer, or … well any number of things this man is not. Instead, the man sitting in front of them has a long, scruffy beard, holes in his shirt, and dirt under his fingernails that suggest he’s no stranger to a hard day’s work.

“Stop staring and move along,” he grunts at them.

“Actually, we’re here for a consultation,” Kyle pipes up.

This time it’s old man looking them up and down. He hesitates for a moment as if deciding whether they’re worth the trouble. “In that case, welcome to Dead of Night Diggers, digging up the past since … ah shit! I forget what year we’re at now. Guess we better skip the formalities then. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, well. I … I uh want to go back in time and change some things.” Jimmy stutters. He’s not a timid guy, but something about the old man has him shaken. An elbow in the side from Kyle is all the prompting he needs to continue, “Right. I guess that was implied. It’s just that well I was a pretty terrible father when my daughter was young and now she won’t let me meet my grandson. So well I want to go back and fix things.”

“Alright, we can help you with that. But there are some conditions you should know about. We don’t just magically plop you back in time, you’ve got to earn it.”

“I can do that!”

“Relax, kid. You don’t even know the terms yet. We’ll draw up an official contract, but let me tell you the basics of how this works first. You’ll tell me when you want to go back to and I’ll calculate a number. That number is how deep of a hole you need to dig to go back that far. Once we’ve agreed to the terms you’ll show up back here at the graveyard at sunset and you’ll have until sunrise to dig the hole. The faster you dig the more time you’ll have in the past to make changes. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Great! So when do you want to go back to?”

“Well I guess to when my daughter was five. That’s when I got the fancy new job that required me to travel every other week.”

The old man nods and starts fiddling with a machine Jimmy hadn’t noticed before. It must be some type of calculator, but it looks nothing like the one he had in high school. There’s knobs and wheels sticking out the side and he has no idea what they could possibly be for.

“That would be one hundred and five feet.”

“One hundred and five! That’s impossible.”

“Maybe you’d like to pick a different moment?”

“Yeah, I won’t go so far back this time. How about when she was eleven and I missed her championship soccer game?”

More fiddling with the strange machine. “Eighty-seven feet for that one.”

“That’s still impossible. How about when I missed her college graduation? That’s got to be less right?”

“Fifty feet.”

Jimmy sighs. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. How is he ever going to find a moment that isn’t too much? “This is hopeless. She’s going to hate me forever.”

“Hey,” Kyle says in the most calming voice Jimmy has ever heard him use, “This isn’t over, yet. Try one more. You’ll regret it if you don’t try everything.”

“I guess you’re right.” He turns to the old man. “I have one last one to try. How about my daughter’s wedding where I missed my flight and couldn’t walk her down the aisle? That’s the last memory I have that might work.”

Jimmy crosses his fingers as he waits for an answer.

“That would be thirty-six feet.” Jimmy’s shoulders slump and he starts to turn around. “You know…, there are other ways to lower the total. We don’t offer them to everyone, but you seem like a good guy so I guess I can offer it to you. What do you say?”

“Yeah, anything. Please.”

“We have these credits you can buy to knock some of the depth off from the estimate. Each one is worth ten feet. All you have to do is give us a year of your memories.”

A year of memories? That doesn’t seem too bad. There’s all those useless years he spent working or the years right out of college where he spent every night out drinking. Not to mention when he was a baby. He doesn’t need those memories.

“Alright, I’ll do it. I’ll buy three credits. Surely I can dig a six foot hole in a night.”

A slow grin spreads across the old man’s face. “We have a deal then. Let me just write up the contract for you to sign and then I’ll see you back here tonight.”

After a quick glance at the papers Jimmy signs on the dotted line and the deal is set.

“Are you sure about this?” Kyle asks as they make their way back to the bus stop.

“Dead sure. I can dig six feet easily.”

“No, I mean the memory part. That seems like a lot to give away.”

“It’ll be fine. Now I need to go take a nap and eat something before I have to start digging.”

Jimmy doesn’t usually arrive anywhere early, hence missing the flight to his daughter’s wedding, but he finds himself standing outside the cemetery twenty minutes before sunset. This moment is too important to risk losing even a second of darkness. He checks his watch one more time and looks around for the old man.

“Relax,” Kyle says and pats him on the back. He’s here for moral support and Jimmy isn’t really sure if it’s going to make what comes next any easier. He closes his eyes and tries to take a deep breath, but it catches in his throat. He’s never been this nervous in his life.

A loud creak from the iron gate startles him out of his failed moment of relaxation. It’s time. The old man shows him to a spot where a rectangle is marked off on the ground.

“Remember, you have until the sun rises to dig. You need to make it six feet down and any time you have left you get to spend in the past.” The old man checks his watch one last time and hands over the shovel.

Jimmy makes quick work of the first foot, knocking it out in no time. But the second doesn’t come so easily. He should have known to pace himself better. He’s standing in side the hole and every time he goes to throw a shovel of dirt over the side a little bit slides back down into the hole.

“You’ve got this Jimmy!” Kyle cheers from the lawn chair he’s unfolded next to the old man. A funny pair they make. They’ve been chatting idly while Jimmy digs. He can’t hear most of what they are saying, but every so often he catches a snippet. Like when he stopped for a drink of water and overheard the old man saying, “Silly of so many of them to try in June when the days are so long and the nights so short.”

Jimmy agrees. He’s an idiot for not having thought of that.

He’s got about four feet done when he takes another quick break and hears Kyle asking the old man what they need the holes for anyway. It seems like a silly question to ask, but when he hears the answer Jimmy wishes he had thought to ask it before signing the contract.

“Oh, that’s where we bury the ones who couldn’t finish.”

That’s all Jimmy needs to hear to motivate him through the final two feet. He’s going to see his daughter get married. He’s going to meet his grandson. He has to. And that means he needs to keep digging.

Finally, he climbs out of the hole and wipes the sweat and dirt off his forehead. He did it. The old man hops up from his lawn chair and walks slowly around the hole, inspecting it carefully.

“That’s a pretty nice hole. Great job, young man! Now, you have three hours left. Use it wisely.” The old man snaps his fingers and suddenly Jimmy is no longer standing in the graveyard. He’s in a board room with his boss and the CEO of a company they want to partner with. He checks his watch. He’s going to be late if he doesn’t leave now.

“I’m sorry, I have to leave or I’m going to miss my flight.” He stands and packs his things up.

“You can’t be serious right now, Jim! We’re about to close this deal.” His boss calls.

“I know and I hope we do, but I really cannot miss this flight. I need to get to my daughter’s wedding.”

The steam coming out of his boss’s ears suggests he might not have a job after this wedding, but he’s worked too hard to get this second chance. Somewhere in the middle of his flight across the Atlantic Jimmy doses off. He hopes he did enough.

“Again, Grandpa! Again!” Felix yells. Jimmy bounces him on his knee again and a chorus of giggles erupts from the little boy.

“Remember when you used to do that with me?” His daughter asks as she sits down on the other side of the sofa. Jimmy knows he should remember that. It was certainly one of his best memories as a father, but he can’t quite find the memories. It’s like he’s reaching out for something slippery and every time he gets close it slips right through his fingertips. He nods softly even if he can’t remember it he knows it’s important to Sarah.

“I remember this one time you bounced me so high I knocked your hat right off your head. And then we both fell over laughing. You started tickling me and I was laughing so hard I almost peed on you.”

“Yeah, that was one of my favorite memories too,” Jimmy says. Sarah is too busy looking at her son to notice that the smile doesn’t quite reach Jimmy’s eyes. He prays his lies will never catch up with him. And he prays that some day these new memories will replace all the old ones he lost.