The roar ripped through her. It filled her head and all dreams perished in its audible wake. She could feel it in her blood. Every nerve sensed it. Hey eyes were convulsing beneath her lids, a thin layer of sweat formed in crystaline droplets on her forehead. It faded. And then as though it was a reflux it came again as though it was a turbine jet engine screaming in her ears. Abruptly in the darkness there appeared orbs, gray-ish in color, and then a faint outline of a nose and followed by a mouth. The mouth opened and the ear drum piercing roar was being admitted from it and there in the mouth…
Her eyes flung open. They darted around the room, the sweat still shiftless on her brow. She grabbed her pen and pad that she kept near the bed and tried to scratch out the dream. It was futile. It faded as soon as she placed pen to paper. Merely dust all so incoherent yet there still lingering, that one image. The whiteness, the brutality. She threw the covers away from her. She sat up and looked at the clock, its red numbers coming at her with brilliance out of the darkness. She could see the minute separator flashing, blinking away the seconds. What was that all about she thought. She thought long and hard about it and decided that trying to read to much symbolism into it would only cloud it. She got out of the make-shift bed in the camper on the dig site and stumbled into the small little bathroom. She turned the fountain knobs and came rushing out. The cool fresh feeling on her skin cooled her down. She wiped her face off and looked at herself in the mirror. “Kate you’re going insane it seems,” she said.
The sun glared down on her, she had just stepped out of the tent, one of many at the archeological dig site. The dig team was close to unearthing the grave site of Giovanni Malatesta De Rimini, the same as in the Inferno. She scanned the work area, last night fragmented dream, at least was still dimly in her mind, where it would stay, for every time pen went to paper it would vanish and as pen would fall away from paper it would again be dimly in her mind as though she had no control over her own vague memories.
She covered her eyes as she looked out. John Fagle coming p with buckets to put through the sieves. Todd Brown going over some details with students that came to volunteer their strength to the dig, besides how often do you get to unearth parts of history, specifically literary history? A small breeze blew some sand and dust particles up, some landing in her eyes. She quickly turned away and went to the eye bath. As she was washing the grainy particles from her eyes there was a knock on one of the tent’s post.
“Yes?” She said.
“Its me Doctor Rhoades,” a young female voice said, “Casandra Burns, I came to—“
“Yes, yes I know who you are miss Burns.” She grabbed a towel and wiped her eyes clear of remaining water.”
“May I ask you a few, a question Doctor, unless you are busy?”
“No I’m not busy, what is it?”
“I was just wondering –“
Just then a field student rushed in to the tent. “Dr. Rhoades, we found Malatesta’s grave!” She looked at the student and back at miss Burns.
“Sorry Burns, but we will have to save the question for later, there seems to be something that needs my attention that is of more importance at the moment.”
At that she left the tent and rushed over to the grave site, one of the lead diggers pointed downward at the grave site. They had just pulled the top stone from the grave exposing the remains inside it. She hopped down from the side and landed gently at the edge of it, she then crouched down and started to examine the remains closely. She scanned over the skull looking at the ridges and fossas of the skull. She suddenly stopped and looked over her shoulder at the people at the top of the grave and said, “ This isn’t Malatesta.”
“Ma’am?” Said a student.
“It’s not Malatesta. This body is from someone much younger, possibly a slave. This is a false grave.” The images started forming in her head again. She dusted off her hands on her pants legs leaving a vague dusty hand prints on them. She was shaking her head as she headed for her trailer to go over more and more documentation of the burial area of Malatesta.
I grabbed a newspaper and looked at the front page, in a small corner, something caught my eye, it was a small head line in thick black ink, it read “Grave Of Giovanni Malatesta A Fake.” I wonder how long it took them to figure out that it wasn’t me, that I was not in that grave and never had been, I wonder if it was a lavish one, I would hate to know that I was buried on a paupers grave, granted I never perished but nonetheless. And the Masquerade continues.
