Like Daddy


Leaves and stones raked by bleeding nails on splintered fingers revealed freshly packed earth, black as the overhead sky.
“You aint got no reason to be diggin’ out there,” his daddy had warned, “leave ‘em be.”
One night he snuck out and followed his daddy to the place he had buried them. At the snap of a twig his daddy swung the spotlight on him.
“I told you not to come back here!”
He buried him alive with the rest of the family, packed the earth and covered it with leaves and stones, just like his daddy.

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