When I lose track of myself, and don’t see the point in what I’ve been doing, I take a break, just lie down on the cold tamped earth and mull things over in the darkness. And then it starts making sense again like it always does. It must be done.
My wife worries too, asks about the sand in my hair, my calloused hands, the caked mud behind my ear. I fabricate vague concerns about an “imminent collapse” and “being prepared”. She cares, God bless her, she worries, but she doesn’t understand. It’s not deep enough yet, not safe enough.
I’ve been excavating, digging this hole, this tunnel, for close to six years now. It’s paramount that it goes deep, real deep. How deep? And what for? Beats me, but I’ll know when I get there.
That keeps me up at night, the bedroom air suffocating me. I want to crawl deep—deeper—into the ground and dig and dig and dig. I tasted a bit of dirt yesterday and had to stop myself from putting more of it in my mouth. I can’t tell what scares me more, eating it or not being able to eat enough.