“The light’s coming,” he announced. At the time I believed he was referring to the sun that had begun climbing above the hedges beyond our kitchen window. Now I am not so certain.

That was the last time I spoke to my father. The next night, while I slept, he moved Below.

*

The day’s organic gloom makes it seem much later than it is as I edge the jeep off the lane and along the entrance driveway of the mine. At one time this passage was truncated by a heavy iron gate bearing a sign that warned of the legal repercussions and physical dangers that trespassers could endure. Today that gate hangs permanently open and the sign is covered over with spray-paint.

The floodlights on their tower perches shine on me, weakly, like a pair of potted moons. I gather up the groceries and the dog that I carry and comfort as though she is my own flesh and blood. As I cross the gravel lot toward the mine entrance, I tighten my grip on the Lab, for she’s begun to whimper and squirm.

“You’re okay, girl,” I assure her, “you’re okay. What should I name you, hmm? What do I call you?”

But the nearer we draw to that rugged tunnel with its downward pitch, the more the dog begins to panic. I know that my clutching her against her will is purely selfish. How I need her companionship, her vitality, her love.

As I struggle with her up the wooden rungs and into the tunnel, the dog begins to growl and bark in a sad, effete protest. No doubt she can sense the offensiveness of whatever lurks Below. She wriggles free and charges for the tunnel’s mouth. I cry out and lunge for her, but she leaps heedless of any risk. I hear her claws scrabbling against the ladder. A moment later I see the dog tearing across the gravel plain. She nears the road and is soon gone.

I slump against the cold black wall of the shaft and I sob. It is the kind of outburst usually reserved for children; the frame-shaking, convulsive weeping that threatens to tear the soul up by its roots.

The sound of approaching footsteps causes me to fight for composure. How sad is it that even now, under such conditions, we pit-canaries still feel the need for personas?

“Everything alright, miss?” one of the sentinels asks me, the light on his hardhat beaming in the blackness like a lustrous pearl.

I nod, pick up the sack of food and brush past him, negotiating the wooden slats with care as I make the long descent toward the platform where the carts are nested.

A family of four sits at one of the platform’s picnic tables, eating peanut butter and saltines.