It's Still Life

Gardening Tips for Late Winter

The shovel was his wife’s. Silver-gilt handle, worn smooth by her grip. He’d kept it after she left, hung it on a hook in the shed where the light never reached.

He started small. Digging in the garden’s far corner, where the roses failed and the soil gave easily. He found a box of letters there, damp at the edges. Then the crawlspace under the shed. Her old jewellery box. The hollow beneath the porch where the floorboards groaned under his weight.

Each hole revealed another piece of the puzzle — why she left. A photograph with its corner burned. A key wrapped in ribbon. An address book with a name crossed out so violently the paper split.

He dug because digging felt like pursuit. Because the rhythm of steel into earth was steadier than memory. Because if he stopped, he would have to stand still inside her absence.

By February, he stood at the edge of a pit so deep the sun couldn’t find the bottom. The earth smelled metallic. Ancient. The walls pressed inward, damp and silent.

His wife’s shovel still in his hands.

He had once heard that when a man fell into a deep hole, it was usually a good idea to stop digging.

He jumped.

---

Written for Violet’s prompt, including the phrase “…when a man fell into a deep hole, it was usually a good idea to stop digging.” by Sharon Kay Penman, A King’s Ransom. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI. Poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2026.