The Dividing Line

Wright: PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The man who died is buried in an unmarked grave. The digger worked fast that night. Business was good. He jammed the coffin into the opening at the bottom of the above-ground crypt, and when it got stuck, he covered the end in a half mound of quick-set cement. Before going on to the next grave, he scratched "Died on 12 2010" into the wet concrete. Just a day and a year. No month. No name. No epitaph. When the sister of the man who died sees the shoddy job for the first time, she stares at the grave, and then at the digger, her pain turning to anger, storm clouds rolling down her face, her anger building, casting its own shadow. She looks at the anonymous grave and she screams.