Editor v. Electrical Engineer

The Editor shouts and curses. After working ten hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without break for the past fifteen years, being disconnected from his magazine is brutally painful.

Why the hell don't you get reception? he shouts at his cell phone.

He chucks it against the tree. He pouts for a second. Then rushes up to the trunk to recover the mess of wiring and plastic. He frantically tries mashing everything back together. Finally, saddened, he drops the heap on the table.

Bah!

He scratches his forehead. Looks around.

Not a bad place to retire, he says finally, crossing his arms. A man could spend a lot of quiet time shooting crows up here.

The Grave Digger walks to the grounds bury the body of the Economist. The schnauzer walks beside him.

What's with the no headstones? You people don't identify bodies?

The Grave Digger looks puzzled.

It's not a complaint, but it is.

He wipes his nose, then reaches up to an undefined spot 100 feet in the air.

I want a monument -- in the old tradition. I'm talking about an obelisk. Black! And I want you to help me make that happen, old timer. You and me.

I'm 37.

We're best friends now. Like Romulus and Rhemus. Brothers? Yeah, brothers. Twins!

The Grave Digger grunts.

Thaddaboy, spoken like a man. Joking about the obelisk, but tell me: what's the gravy on his stake? Don't hold back, I want it all. In twenty words or less.

The Grave Digger fills him in.

Huh, says the Editor. Now I know why she was so eager for me to send a crew here. I would have, too, if not for cut backs. And lack of an address. You know where they found her signal? Bounced off the ionosphere! Couldn't trace it, thought it was a telecommunications relay off Tongo Tongo.

The Grave Digger starts digging.

So you going to give him a headstone? I'll find him a headstone.

He does: he fetches a rock from the cairn by the creek.

The two men work for a long while together. The Grave Digger relents to a headstone for the Economist. Without a name - What did he say his name was? Ed? Burl? the Editor asks himself, brow in a knot. - they can only offer a simple cross.

The next day, when the Electrical Engineer arrives, the Editor's picked out the biggest rock from the creek. He's in the process of rolling it to the burial ground.