Burying Bibles

I have buried a lot of Bibles in the last decade—Bibles that are leftover after our summer church fair. That’s what you’re supposed to do with no-longer-needed holy books. At the end of the fair, I carry the leftovers home and get the tall shovel out of the shed. Using the heel of my right shoe, I thrust its blade deep into the soil and make a hole large enough for a dead pet. In they go.
In fact, each of the three monotheistic faiths practice some form of this. There are a series of underground tunnels in the Chiltan Hills near Quetta, Pakistan, where nearly 100,000 discarded and partial Qur’ans are carefully packed in bags, buried (which they actually call “storing” in a hopeful sort of way), and then watched over by devout Muslims who feel called to the sacred task. The first of these many tunnels was dug in 1992 and measures 130 feet in length, and is about seven feet in circumference.
On a much less impressive scale, someday someone will buy my old house, dig up the rear part of the garden (look to the area closest to the shed, near the remnants of last year’s tomato plants), and likely scratch their heads at what they find about twenty-two inches down.