The Big Dig

Archeology shows a cycle we are doomed to repeat

Jameson carefully moved the stiff bristles of the brush back and forth across the rock slowly. Hundreds of tons of fruitless tailings had led to this moment. Archeology is like war, he thought. An eternity of boredom punctuated by ten minutes of pure adrenaline!

The markings developed from suggestions to ghosts to actual lines.

"Yes!" Jameson cried. "This is it! This drawing is older than Maltravieso!"

"We don't know that yet, Professor," one of the local interns said in a slightly shocked voice. "The carbon dating—"

Jameson whirled, his neck bulging with veins. He hissed from beneath his trademark pith hat. "I've spent my life in this hole, child! I know what I've found." He scoffed dismissively, tossing her a piece of rock from the bottom of the hole. "Go test this if you don't trust me—but don't bother coming back to my dig."

She dropped the rock and looked down, chastened to silence. Jameson returned to the rock.

He swept away more sand. A very clear story began to appear: Stick figures with sticks in their hands rimmed the top of a hole. A stick man with large boot-like feet lay at the bottom of the pit below.

"Trapped enemy?" Professor Jameson muttered to himself. "Sacrifice?"

He knelt and brushed off a second row of pictures. Several men in a pit of spikes. The men were red, carrying what could only be swords. "Impossible..." Jameson muttered.

Lowering to his belly, he revealed a third line of art. Just as he cleared the last picture story, he heard the earth around him crack and shift, and he understood.

The final picture was a man in a hole with large rocks atop him. There was red paint coming from the man. And a very cleverly drawn trademark white pith hat.

NOTES: ▼

Word Count: 300
Winner of "Daily Flash Fiction Challenge"  - 8/13/25
Prompt: Use the words "below," "drawing," and "rock."