Bennie pummeled the bright little hole, over and over again. The animal’s constant scratching had thinned the wood around it, and the lid was splintering along the crack. She picked at the edges of the hole with her fingers, then she bashed the wood until painstakingly, excruciatingly, and infinitesimally, she was widening the hole, its golden circle like her own personal sun.
It was the size of a dime, and she was aiming for a quarter, and so she kept going. She had to finish before the animal came back. Her face was soaked with sweat, perspiration drenched her entire body, and though she could breathe, the air in the box had grown hotter. She hit harder, and suddenly, something fell through it onto her face. She blinked and shook it off, reflexively. It felt like dirt, and then she understood.
I’m buried alive.
She forced herself not to panic. She started pounding again, but her hands were bloody and every blow hurt, so she hooked her hand inside the neck of her cotton shirt and yanked hard. It tore the shirt down the front, and she wrenched the fabric back and forth to rip it to the bottom, ending up with a bandage, of sorts. She wrapped it around her right hand, pressing it into the open wound with her chin. The pain brought tears to her eyes, but she got back to work, pounding and picking.
She stayed strong thinking of Grady. If she got out of this alive, she would call him and tell him that he was more important than work, more important than anything. That she thought about him every day, he was always in the back of her mind, and that she had called his office once and hung up, like a teenager. She’d even Googled him to see what cases he was working on, she’d read his articles and briefs online. She would beg him back.
She stuck her finger through the hole to keep widening it, grabbing the edge and wiggling it up and down to break off more and more pieces of wood. There was no other way to keep going, and she hit the lid again and again with her bandaged hand, powered by the sheer will to live.
And the memory of a love she’d left behind.