Starting down, I discovered, off to one side, a cavelike room that, in my haste and the dark, I had missed on the way up, and if you’re the type to get creeped out by a big pile of silver body bags, some dating back fifty, sixty years, with a faint smell of decay, and the random skeletal arm or leg jutting out, take my advice: don’t go in there with a flashlight, as I erroneously did!

In summary, the Spout up which we all have been hopefully gazing these many years is no Spout at all, but a mere shaft leading to a sad, creepy room of the dead (!).

We are sealed in, sealed in good down here, by a stout, permanent plug of concrete. Or perhaps a concrete/poly amalgam.

How are Visitors supposed to get down here? They aren’t. They were not, it seems, ever intended to.

We shall remain un-Visited forever.

I shit you not.

What’s it about? Why put us here? Once upon a time, bad things going on Above? Disease stuff, war stuff, famine stuff? Somebody Above thought: Better set a little something aside? Like seeds? And that is us? Until such time as the bad stuff ends? Or population control? Our ancestors were crooks, and this was their jail? Then why make it so fancy? Why the costumes, the roles, the creek, the Tram, the Bowling?

I do not know.

And believe no one currently alive among us does.

My entire adult life I have kept this to myself. I have been so lonely. Am about to blow. There are days I honestly feel like cutting my own wire with one of my spears and plummeting down from on high. But if that does not occur, see you soon, pal, from on high! I await your reply. Write me back asap, by way of Edgar, my son, CHICAGO GANGSTER HIDEOUT, who brought you this letter, although he is ignorant of its contents, and anyway has never been a big reader.

Your friend, still, I hope, despite the heavy deal I have just laid on you.

Rolph P. Spengler

I walk over and gaze up the Egress Spout, thinking, Wait, what now?

Did I know, dear reader, that few Visitors have tended to come down here, and in fact none ever has, even once, in all the days of my life? Yes, yes, of course, we all know that. But knowing it is one thing, saying it another. Why say it? Does it help? We know from bitter experience it does not. All recall with shame that period referred to as the Slough, during which, discouraged, many of us abandoned our roles entirely, casting aside accoutrements and costumes, just lolling around talking crap, arguing, kvetching, brawling, hitting Vending up for those sedative shooters called SomnoSlams, following these, sometimes minutes later, with those mini-paks of stimulant dust called the HyperHooper.

Those were the days.

Not!