I haven’t been up to the surface for a few days. Here in the tunnel I find myself wanting want more than thoughts and plans and digging. I’m slightly embarrassed that I want fresh water, I want a good night’s sleep in a bed, I want clean clothes. I’ve spent a long time with my body in the dirt. I ask the girl if she’d like to take a break for a day, perhaps the last one in a long time; she nods yes and tells me she’d like a coke and a cigarette before we go any farther. I grin at her. My own wants seem virtuous suddenly: cleanliness and purification sound righteous, ascetic even.

Lifting the mercury and slipping it into my pocket was a good idea; I can see that now. The words that seem to float in it sit quietly in their darkness until I can take them up into the day and arrange them under the sunlight. I know that’s part of the reason for my desire to break from digging and planning and climb outside for a spell. If the words are going to influence me in any way, it’s better I should know what they mean and not try to interpret illucidly. I know they could change color and stiffen once they’re above ground and sunlit, but then I’ll be sure.

Before I go on up, I get another idea, a small one. I decide to go ahead with the staircase when the girl and I return, even though the planning will be arduous and most of it we may have to make up along the way. I know nothing of things like the Coreolis effect, or even basic structural engineering. I think instead of embedding lines of the girl’s poetry in each riser of each step, of fashioning newels that are complete stanzas. I have new vigor. This is Day Ten.