Kolkamitza couldn’t resist reaching down with his free hand. The air below was cold, like a submerged spring. He rotated his wrist, swirling the chilly air. He wanted more, so much more. Fantasies about what else there may be to discover down there percolated in his mind and were immediately replaced by manic theories as to how he should proceed. Should he dig further? Daylight was depleting. Should he expedite the process by renting a backhoe?

Ludicrous.

A thin memory then flashed in Kolkamitza’s mind, an image that could provide the simplest, most direct means of progress. It was stored in a corner of the tool shed. He’d not thought about it since the week he’d moved in. Had he glimpsed it earlier today when he’d fetched the shovel to dig the jackdaw’s grave?

Racing to the shed, Kolkamitza was overjoyed to confirm that he had.

The tree swing had been left behind by the family who’d occupied the upper storey prior to Erin. Kolkamitza had pulled the swing down the very day they’d vacated. It had been his vengeance for all the loud, shrill summer afternoons he’d had to endure when the parents had let their son loose in the yard.

The swing’s rope was comprised of thickly braided polyester. Kolkamitza was confident that it would support his weight. He unknotted the two lengths from the swing’s plank, then tied them to one another to create the longest possible cord. This he bound to the trunk of the apple tree that grew close to the door in the earth. There was not enough rope for him to secure it around his waist, but, provided the drop wasn’t greater than what it appeared to be, he could scale down using the hand-over-hand method.

Hunched by the rim of the hole, rope-in-fist, Kolkamitza hesitated. His reluctance was almost mystical; an intuition that somehow this descent would forge a rift in his life. This was a waymark. But whether this journey would lead to worse or better things he dared not guess.

Triple-winding the rope around his wrist, he pulled the makeshift towline taut and began his incremental repel. The neighbourhood’s indigenous noises became muted, while the nerve-wracking creak and groan of the rope grinding into the tree trunk was amplified. Kolkamitza willed himself to stay focused. He was now eye-level with the lawn. He could see swarms of ants frantic in their obscured labours amidst the blades.

Drawing in a breath like a diver about to plunge into the deeps, he allowed the subterranean cold to swallow him.