We’re up early, maybe noon. I can tell we’re close to the continental divide. I tell the girl You spit on one side, and I’ll spit on the other, and first she nods, thinking me serious, then realises: Oh! and laughs, cuffs me with her spoon.
I hear the words (PIE TOWN) jingling in my pocket when I start digging. It’s a pleasant sound, and it gets me thinking. The girl digs and thinks too. We are silent for awhile except for the scraping noise of our spoons against soil and the jingling. Then she puts down her spoon. She makes a few notes and a drawing, and taps me on the arm. She shows me some of her logic. I read:

moisture+minerals+endorphins-(pheremone)²
x(aldehyde)@telepathic/velocity(condensation)
+kilowatt/hour÷sucralose= alchemy

(and there’s this picture she’s drawn of a coke bottle)

So this is what happened! I had wondered! When we were aboveground and I placed the coke-bottle on my forehead, condensation mixed with perspiration and a droplet must have fallen, touched the grass where the quicksilver words had dried and disintegrated. And then there was, says the girl, poetically, some kind of wonderful.

I agree. Alchemy. So that’s how the words became whole again; that’s how they came to life.
I trust her logic. I like it when nonsense makes sense.

This is Day Sixteen.