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He didn't volunteer to bury it. And he decided if he still saw that body lying there on the ground with too many bullet-holes he wasn't going to get out of the car or even stop.
Thankfully Fring had sent someone to bury it. Or someone else had. He couldn't think of who. It really doesn’t matter. Out of the car now.
He found the place where the earth was turned up only slightly. Whoever’d done it did a good job.
He suddenly thought of when he'd reported that dead body to the police a few years back.
Fring would know it was him if he did that now.
Fring would kill Manuel if he did that now.
He swallowed hard and looked up at the sky and took a deep breath and let it out harshly. He blinked rapidly. He cursed. He let out a shaky sigh. On his knees now.
As he dug the trowel into the ground, he felt a sort of dread that the body wouldn't be buried deep enough…
But it was. He sat back on his haunches.
He swallowed bile and sniffed. He blinked and he blinked and his eyes burned. Mucus ran down his throat. He took the start out of the black plastic pot. Place it and the loam and sand into the small hole and press it down. He opened a plastic water bottle and unceremoniously poured it around the roots and the rest of it into the surrounding sand. Hopefully it’d grow here. This was a natural climate for it. It probably would. But animals could come by or it could have trouble taking root or it could get blown away in a strong wind or crushed under a tire in some teen’s joyride.
But then he thought that it really doesn’t matter if it dies or not and he sobbed. Manhole cover removed from a flooded sewer.
He doesn't remember the last time he cried like this. He doesn’t want to remember the last time he cried like this. He doesn’t want to cry like this. It wasn’t loud but it echoed off the hills back at him. He couldn't stop. Fuck.
Clenched fists on the ground in front of him and he looked down at the start beneath him and he wanted to rip it out and dig him up and tell him "I'm so sorry" but that would be impossible because he was never buried because no one’s ever buried. He’s nowhere and it really doesn’t matter. Fuck. Fuck. Doesn’t want to be living.
But he never did and so that feeling really doesn’t matter. Living for other people; always.
And he hadn’t been one of the people he lived for.
He could’ve been. But even if he had, he would end up dying like this anyway and it would just be more meaningless pain. Thankful that he didn’t let himself live for him.
Living for other people; he wouldn’t want it any other way. There’s not any other way to want.
But only them, only them and no one more. The less people, the less hurt. Try to keep it low. And he did.
He stopped sobbing. His breathing steadied. He swiped at his eyes. He sat there next to the flower and he sat there a couple feet above a corpse and he looked at the sky and thought that it wasn't really his place to be sitting there. But was anything his place.
Without pollution the sky really was so beautiful. It wasn't black but a deep blue from the moonlight and the stars. Some of them were different colors. He saw a couple satellites moving across the sky at different speeds. He saw an airplane far away, near the horizon. It was small.
There were clusters of stars with smaller clusters inside them. There was a star at any one spot he looked. Dim stars...
He picked up the trowel and the empty bottle and the empty pot and he stood up. On his feet now.
He took some steps forward so that he wasn't standing directly on top of his grave (even if he stood directly on top of his grave there would be no difference) and turned and said that he was sorry and walked back to his car. He got in the driver's seat. He caught a glimpse of his face in the rear-view mirror and saw that it was streaked with dirt. He was too tired to care to wipe it. He started the car.