Ep1. A Shovel in Pleasant Place
Spring time was
about and the skies were much warmer than previous weeks. The Birds chirped the new rhythms of the
season down in Pleasant Place. Some people call it the hood. Carl called it home. The red brick roads were still freshly
crumbled from the snows of the winter that might actually still be here. The weather is so unpredictable, unless you
are writing the Farmer’s Almanac. Carl
felt it would be the perfect day to get some gardening gear stored up. The frost might still be here so he thought
he might start to turn over some dirt for pre-planting. The store was within walking distance right
down the street. On his walk to the
local convenience store Carl saw two young petite teenage girls running down
the street and screaming for help. Police cars sped by in a hurry, and paid no
mind to the girls.
Carl asked the teenagers what they were running and screaming for and they said, "This creepy
guy was tryin' to grab us. We don't see
him no more though. That was crazy!"
They continued talking to each other down the street huffing for air.
Carl walked to the corner that the girls had just came
sprinting from. He thought he might see
some rough looking man there, but he saw nothing and continued on to the
store. On the way over he picked a leaf
off of a tree and rolled it between his fingers and sniffed them. His finger was died chlorophyll green leaf
oil.
Carl wasn't sure if
they would have what he needed at the corner store, but it was the nearest
place so why not try. The store had
nothing for gardening except a few seeds and a pointed construction
shovel. Carl thought no need to waste a
trip so he bought the seeds and the shovel.
When asked if he wanted a receipt he said no and put the seeds in his
pocket. The shovel was slightly heavy so
he adjusted his grip and held the shovel at a point closer to its center of
gravity.
Carl walked out of the store. He clinked the head of the
shovel on the cement. The shovel left a
tiny divet in the walkway, but who would care.
There was a large group of guys blocking the path he would be heading --
nobody paid Carl any mind though. The
air was filled with a skunky pine smell.
A plain clothed police officer drove by in a hurry and
almost ran over Mrs. Beverly a matriarch of the community. A teenage boy told the cop to watch
out. The officer responded by threating
to arrest the teenage boy Lester by taser.
Carl pulled out his phone and recorded it. Eventually the officer let Lester go after
several older gentlemen asked the cop to forget about it.
Carl walked again upon the corner the petite teenage girls
were running from. He wondered if the
police knew or even cared about the creepy guy in the neighborhood. The shovel in his hand gave Carl a sense of
invincibility. People moved out of the
way as he passed by them. The head of
the shovel shined, and the tip was very sharp.
The shaft was sturdy. The only
drawback was that the handle was plastic.
This shovel was meant to dig through things with Carl and turn over the
earth. Shield and spear all in one.
"I hope nobody
thinks I'm taking out the garbage for a hit squad," Carl thought to
himself.
Carl returned home with his shovel and seeds. He put the seeds away in the house to be
germinated, and then went to work outside.
Crunch, Crunch, Crunch, Ding, Ding, Crunch. Carl was stepping on that shovel and turning
over that dirt and rock. The more he
cracked rocks and turned over dirt he started to feel some sort of way about
how the police could threaten to arrest a teenage boy but do nothing about the
creepy grabber. He thought, "Maybe
the police aren't out here to protect our neighborhood. What are they out here for! A lot of girls have gone missing in Pleasant
Place already. Something has to be
done."
Carl dug one more time and from nowhere the ground split and
gave him the biggest jolt of electricity he had ever felt.
He lied there on the ground while breathing the oxidized
Spring air. An opalescent figure waves
and looks Carl straight in the eye, points at the shovel. Carl received the words "Let’s turn over
this land." Every square inch of
Pleasant Place flashes before his eyes for the tiniest largest bit of a moment.
Carl listened to the rhythms of the birds, as he walked down
the brick roads of his home town Pleasant Place with shovel in hand.
