The excavation site looked colorful, festive. Like a mother sheltering her children, a dark green tent spread its top and its partially furled walls over the patch of grass where construction stakes with small orange flags marked the outline for the digging. Also under the tent were chairs and a small table, and leaning against the table were shovels, each decorated with a bright red ribbon. The red ribbons contrasted colorfully with the green of the tent and the yellow of a backhoe that sat off to the side, with its long arm that ended in a toothed scoop turned down and tucked underneath like the neck of a sleeping swan.
Closer up, at the edge of the wood, just barely within the shade of the tent on the recently mown ground, was another splotch of red, but this red was not sharp and confined like the ribbons. Instead, it pooled around the head of a body crumpled and lying facedown in the grass.
Blood. So colorful. Not so festive.