Six feet down, two feet climbing.

1977. Suddenly, unbelievably, at the end of our street one morning: something carved through earth. Curved walls towering over me like a battle trench, earthy and crumbling and good. Six feet under, and there was a coldness. Dark layers, root tentacles, mini-Nargun rocks, swallowing and blanketing under all the world's sound. This core earth, slashed open to air and sun and fingers for the first time ever. We swarmed up and down, casual armies in epic battles, always defeated by dusk and our mother's call. I don't remember boredom, only questions and structure and new carpet burns. Weeks later I stood on what was vacant. The trench, now filling, settling, recompressing with soil and stones and halfworms. Something buried, something fixed. Darkness returned, a void filled, a summer played.