The Man in the Ditch

Primer: The Man in the Ditch focuses on an unnamed character coming to after an unknown event knocked him senseless and follows the main character in the moments that immediately followed the event.

The Man in the Ditch was one of two short stories I wrote for Dead Reckoning Collective’s Summer 2021 writing contest. (https://deadreckoningco.com/pages/about). This story was submitted and made it to the final selection but ultimately was not picked.

996 Words

Glendale, AZ

July 2021

The Man in the Ditch

The first sense that the man in the drainage ditch regained was his smell. The ditch smelled of feces and excrement. The rancid, diaper in the sun, smell revived the man who then opened his eyes. Sight now functional, the man saw a pale-blue, cloudy sky. The pleasantness almost overcame the feces smell battling for control of his mind. The occasional red streak that sliced through the blue sky was also a nice touch. After a few moments, the red streaks seemed to match up with a thurping sound that was off to the man’s left. His ears weren’t working at 100% yet, but he began to hear an echoing “thurp thurp thurp” through the high-pitched tone that had drowned out all sound a split-second ago. The piercing tone in his ear gave way to more “thurp thurp thurp” and the thurps were followed a moment later by a red streak through the sky.

The man was puzzled. Where was he? Feces, a beautiful, supersonic firefly-filled sky, and this incessant thurping sound. Also, he couldn’t help but feel he was missing something. He could hear, smell, and see.

“Thurp thurp thurp” echoed from his left again followed by the fireflies. He really wanted to know what that sound was. Was it fireworks? His face grimaced as he tried to remember the sound and what else he should be sensing. The grimace included a rough, metallic-tasting swallow.

He thought, “Ah yes...taste”. There it was. But metal? Like a hot, liquid copper, he thought as the man reached his wet, muddy hand to his lip. He had forgotten that he was laying in a wet ditch full of some sort of excrement. The smell of his gloved hand reminded him of his current place in the world. Still, he instinctively touched his glove to his lip. He looked at his dirty, gloved, hand and saw a crimson streak across his index finger. Realizing the metallic taste was his blood-filled mouth, he gagged and spit to his right. A white bone-like object came out with his spit. He tongued around his mouth finding the source of the blood...a missing tooth. As the man slid his tongue between his right lower canine and molar teeth the last sense struck the man like a lightning bolt. Regaining his feeling, the half-broken tooth drove a sharp pain into the man’s skull, briefly damping the thurps, smell, sky, and taste.

The man let out a whimpered cry as the lightning pain of his broken tooth burned out his other senses. His muddy, smelly hands were drawn to his bloody face to attempt to soothe the pain. He tried desperately to think through the suppressive pain as to where he was or what had led to his current situation. He couldn’t think through the cacophony of senses inflicting pain and beauty on him. He tried to slow his breathing but began to choke on the blood that had pooled in the back of his throat. He turned to his right side and coughed out the pooled blood and a piece of his broken tooth.

When the man had shifted to his right side in the ditch, two pieces of silver metal attached to a beaded chain slid out from under his shirt. They were both identical and had what the man believed to be his identifying information. He struggled to concentrate on the task of reading through his overloaded senses. The pain, taste, and smell alone were nearly enough to make the man return to unconsciousness. His exposed tooth roots were blasting pain into the man’s skull. Watery, crimson blood continued to drizzle from his mouth with every breath. He tried once more to focus on the metal to learn more about himself but failed once more to think through what he was pretty sure was a head concussion.

From his side, he glanced up and could now see a tall, lush palm tree just to the side of the ditch he was in. The man was curious as to how he had noticed it before. Then he vaguely remembered seeing that palm tree before but couldn’t place it. The memory was trapped inside his brain…along with his ability to read. For a split second, he had a vision in his head of the thurp sound causing him to run into the palm tree. As soon as he began to remember a little of what had happened, the memory seemed to disappear like the event never happened.

His thoughts shifted to the thump sound. The thumps had stopped and had been replaced by men shouting in a language he did not understand.

The shouting sounded angry and seemed to be getting closer. The man added fear to the pain, confusion, and overall bad time he was having. He shifted once more to his stomach and looked up the ditch. The man began looking for options as something deep in his brain told him that he shouldn’t wait for the horrifying men that approached his ditch. Fourteen body lengths away was a hole about twice his size. The hole seemed to go somewhere other than the ditch and away from the angry men. The man committed to the "hole plan" and started to pull himself toward the opening.

Elbow over elbow, he drug himself through the smelly, rotting ditch. Each elbow pull caused him great pain but closed the distance to the hole. The shouting grew closer with each body length the man gained toward the hole. The man’s crawling became a race for survival. Each elbow pull a small step closer to freedom. The substance in the ditch squished under each landed elbow as he reached the hole. Now focused, the man could no longer smell or feel the pain. Nor could the man in the ditch hear the four angry men with rifles, standing directly behind him by the beautiful palm tree against the blue sky.

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