Diggers

Lads call me Maddox. It’s a nickname, hated it but it stuck. Now my ears prick up whenever someone says that name.

It’s not easy, this life, at the beck and call of tragedy. Three days we’ve been out here, digging out our children. Three days since the tractors broke down and Harold got up and spoke in that whitling voice of his, gesturing at every word. I’ll have them up and running by sunrise. Been three days, lad. Three and still we shovel mud.

Potentially hundreds. Easily. Can’t compare man and machine. Bald-faced liar. Got elected saying he would weed out waste, cut out the ties and the suits. Seat wasn’t even warm before he turned to working folk. Called us waste. Wanted to cut emergency services, saying that they have preventative measures to curtail such tragedies. Coal mine crumbles like biscuits, suddenly preventative measures hadn’t seen this coming. Tis our boots covered with dirt, our hands shivering in the cold, our hearts breaking with each child pulled from the mud… and he said there was fat in our ranks and it was his duty to cut it off. Everyone’s emotional while Harold dabs a bone-dry eye. All rumors have some truth. We all knew what kind of man he was.

Folks are welcome to volunteer. Women too if they have the stomach for it. We need all the help we can get. School had over a hundred children, and we’ve recovered thirty. Still a long way to go.

 

Florist

It’s unkind to even think it but it’s true, business is booming. The line outside our humble shop goes round and round the block.

Yes, it helps that we have the best flowers. Finest quality. My Pa was a florist like his Pa before him. Grandpapa had the fire, he cut his teeth on that. Pa had the bombing. And I this unthinkable tragedy.

No, I don’t wonder what my Michael would have. That would be crass. And I take offense at your entire line of questioning.

I did not say business is booming. I said the line goes round the block. And I said it with a heavy heart. I sell flowers and I have a keen eye for colour hence the beauty of our arrangements. Emmet, down the street, thinks bouquets are just reds and yellows with a splash of white. He plays with colours, I make art. That’s why the line’s long.

No comment. Thank you for coming to Anton’s flower shop with ya cameras and ya notebooks. I assume you will buy a bouquet each so, three hundred by the cashier. Small bills only.

 

Carpenter

Name’s Joe. Thirty years next week. Made the coffins for three mayors, an earl, and ten priests along with majority of the villagers here.

A good coffin isn’t just determined by the craft of whoever carves it. Good wood, the right wood, is just as important if not more. So, personally there has been two separate tragedies from all the nasty business with the coal mine. Of course, the children, and that is the greater loss. But the school fence was lined with oaks, cherries, walnut, cedar, and all that. All proper wood. And when the coal mine went down like a house of bricks, and coal and mud came tumbling down the hill destroying the school, the fence wasn’t spared.

Now, Gary has a hundred corpses, all needing coffins, and you lot brought your cameras and all the bloody circus, so I can’t have them trotted out in imperfect coffins.

I think the apt word for it would be a crisis. Debris spared all the undesirable wood. Now we have coffins that won’t take the varnish and when you lot film it will all look dull, and nobody wants dull. That’s why I went to Harold, sat him down, and now we have a batch of oaks coming in by the end of the day. Can’t put a price on that.

 

Mortician

Gary. Just Gary.

I don’t mind it if I’m being completely honest. It’s usually slow but now it is round the clock work.

First when we receive the body we tag it, and in this case, we’ve been numbering them. Then we clean to make it easier for the families.

Don’t mind the combs. We’ve been going through them like shortcake. It’s all the mud in the hair. Clumps up and breaks the combs.

If you don’t mind, we are a bit swamped and my guys can’t do the nasty business in front of the cameras. Gets like a butcher shop, and I’m sure viewers don’t want to see any of that. Door’s by the back.

 

Mary, villager

It was a typical morning. Rain coming down by the bucketful, so we didn’t even say our goodbyes. Gave him a raincoat and my church umbrella, and my last words to him was, lose the umbrella and I’ll break your legs…

Midday, if memory serves me right. Thought it was an earthquake, sounded like an earthquake, felt like one too. Then I saw the rocks tumbling down the hill… and I thought of my… my poor baby.

Everyone knows it’s Harold’s fault. Cutting down first responders. Not fixing the tractors when they broke. Now I hear he’s ordering oak for the coffins, letting everyone know it was him that thought of it, saying it’s the least he can do… he ought to resign, that’s the actual least he can do.

‘Course we’re mad. He’s galavanting in front of the cameras while our husbands pull our children from the mud. I know nothing can bring back my Clara, or any of the children and teachers that lost their lives, but letters were written to the men in charge. We knew the mines were faulty and every clipboard they sent agreed with us, but nothing was done. Harold ought to pay. I’d shoot him with my husband’s pistol if he brought his circus into my home.

Scalp him with my fingernails. Scald him with my tea. Yes, I’m a Christian woman and yes, I live in accordance with the faith, but if God won’t smite him, I’ll do it myself.

That’s cinnamon your tasting. Ma’s recipe. Makes the tea so much sweeter.

 

Priest

His office reached out and offered to reschedule to a later date.

 

Harold, Mayor

Anger in times like this is very much expected. Anger towards oneself. Anger towards God. Anger towards government. What we ought to do is rise above the noise, for lack of a better word, and seek to find out the root cause of this tragedy. Finger pointing, however easy, should not shroud our judgement. You elected me, and I very much intend to serve. In the coming weeks, I shall launch a tribunal in my name that will carry out an independent investigation, and publish their findings in the coming months.

I shall take no further questions.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Alan Quirván from Pexels