I’ve figured something out. I explain it to the girl today over grilled-cheese sandwiches that someone drops down the hole for us. (I don’t ask questions, and the cheese turns out to be a very good Gruyère.)
It’s a simple thing: If we dig our side-tunnel (to PIE TOWN, NM – a whim) on a slight and gradual incline rather than on a perfect horizontal (then abrupt vertical) path, we can enjoy a carefree slide down on our trip back to the main tunnel. This is the kind of childlike diversion I like, the stuff of memories.

The girl is smart. She saves the waxed paper wrappings from the sandwiches so we can use them as coasters for sliding back down the PIE TOWN side-tunnel. I touch my left back jeans pocket to make sure I still feel the quicksilver words there and then begin digging the new tunnel. Both of us dig tirelessly. I don’t think we’ll be coming up to the surface until we reach New Mexico. I feel a new heat within the earth as we head southwest, digging closer to the surface again. It’s hard for me to get my bearings, but the girl says she’s got good directional instinct and that it should not be long. We’re turning up some odd animal bones, too. I’m going to keep a cow’s skull to hang up as a place-marker for the entrance of this side-tunnel.
Lord of the Flies! shrieks the girl, laughing. (I laugh with her.)
Suddenly, we are both tired and curl up for a night’s rest.
This is Day Fifteen.