Digging, IMDB, Retirement

After leaving the factory for the last time, Alan stopped at the hardware store, bought a shovel, then headed home. He kissed his wife of thirty-nine years on the cheek and went straight to bed.

The next morning Alan awoke before sunrise and began digging in the garden almost immediately. By the time Alan's wife came downstairs he had already dug a hole three feet deep.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Digging a hole." he replied.

At 5pm Alan stopped digging, came back into the house, kissed his wife on the cheek and went straight to bed. The same thing happened the next day and the day after that.

On the fourth day Alan's wife came out to the garden and saw the hole was now over ten feet deep.

"If you carry on like this you'll end up in China." she said with a false chuckle. Alan groaned and carried on digging.

Two weeks passed and Alan's wife was becoming increasingly concerned. Knowing that confronting him would only annoy him, she decided to embrace the digging. That night she cooked a toad in the hole. This seemed to please Alan, who made eye contact with his wife for the first time since his retirement.

The next day, Alan's wife said she had rented a film for them to watch when he'd finished digging.

"If I'm not too tired." said Alan.

"It's The Hole, the one with Thora Birch and Keira Knightley."

Alan appeared to enjoy the film, but once it finished he seemed agitated. He asked his wife to load the computer so he could check the internet movie database. His fears were confirmed. Keira Knightley was 15 at the time of filming The Hole, a film in which she flashed her bare breasts. Concerned that he may have just consumed child pornography, Alan unplugged the TV and VCR, put them in his car and drove forty miles to the nearest forest. There he smashed the TV and VCR with a hammer, then set fire to them just to be sure.

Alan's wife received no explanation for the missing TV and VCR and so she decided it was probably for the best to stop embracing the digging.

On the 122nd consecutive day of digging, when the hole was now over a hundred feet deep, Alan's shovel was met not by soil or rock, but by wood. There was a coffin. A nice one. Top of the range. Alan opened the lid and was met by a man with his same face, clothes and hair.

"Alan." said Alan.

"Alan." replied the Other Alan. The Other Alan climbed out of the coffin, put his hand in Alan's pocket and pulled out his keys and wallet. Alan climbed into the coffin and closed the lid.

"Bye then." he said.

The Other Alan spent the rest of the day filling in the hole. Once he was finished, he went into the house, kissed Alan's wife on the cheek and went straight to bed.