Old man

He sighed as he lost his grip on the earth. The shaking of his arm caused the grains to flow like mercury, away.
He was an old man now, but he was younger than he had thought he would be when he defined himself as such.
Somewhere a bird was tweeting. His hearing had grown so poor that he could not locate the offending noise. It may as well have been a garbled vomiting frog perched in the branches of the pear tree at the bottom of his overgrown garden.
He wheeled round and tried to locate the mocking bird. What soil he still held he tried to hurl at a bush that might have hid the noisemonger.
He threw the sandy ground like a girl. Nothing new could grow here now. Sometimes it felt like he had a timeshare on his legs.
Currently he was living in his legs. He could walk and turn, but he couldn't use his arm muscles unless he gave up habitation of his lower limbs.
He remembered the spade and bent to retrieve it. Back spasmed, black chasms possessed his eyes. He stood straightish and the chasms became pools.
As the saltwater rolled onto his lips he felt again able to scream. The starlings scattered as he bellowed.
The black demon cloud had entered the birds as if commanded by Christ. Perhaps they would all fly into the engine of a plane?
He turned and trudged back towards the house.
He would bury his wife another day.