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Description
The young man is dirty, coal-dusted and breathing heavily.  A rusting miner’s cap clings tightly to mute-colored hair and the Davy lamp is flickering.  He walks through the tunnel, passing beam after wooden beam along the walls, the ceiling.  Echoes, echoes everywhere.  Tap, tap, tap.  Steel picks against rock.  Thump, clomp, thump, stomp.  His boots rumble dimly over the floor.  Hush, buzz, shush.  Whispers of conversation as he floats past sub-shafts.  Rumble, bumble, creaky-squeak.  Wheels of the mine cars.  A symphony of sorts.  Music of the mines.
         It is dark, dark but not dreary.  The shovel is a comfortable weight on his shoulder; the canteen on his hip rests like a baby.  Tap, tap.  The sound waxes and wanes as he passes gaping tunnels.  Heat rises like jungle steam as he descends into the blackness.  Grumble, squeak, tumble, creak.  He presses up against the wooden beam.  A mine car bumbles past.  Right turn, right turn, pass three shafts, left turn, right, pass two shafts, right.  A maze only the best can run in near darkness.
         Ahead, light.  Outlined in feeble flickering are two others, tapping away.  He drops his lantern beside them and strikes a mighty blow.  Smash!  They glance at him but continue.  That is the way of things, silence but for the tap, tap, tap, a grunt, a grimace, and they work on.  There has never been any other way.
         Sweat plasters his shirt.  Dust on his skin becomes sticky mud.  Useless to bother with it though. Only more will come.
Tap, tap.
         They tap on.
         When the pile of rocks and dirt is tall, they switch to shovels.  Long, shrill scraaape, scraaape, dump into the mine car.  Fill it up, move it out.  The car thunders away, rumble, grumble.  An empty car squeaks up.  Again, tap, tap, tap.
         Time has no authority here.
         Every hour is the same.
         The boy with the dinner pails comes along.  Pause in the tapping.  Small nimble hands struggle to lift the pails from the cart.  Bread and dripping, cheese, whiskey-laden tea, all laced with a fine coat of black dust.  It sticks to the roof of the man’s mouth, choking, croaking.  A swig of whiskey.  Fire burns away the dust.
         The boy leaves.
         Louder, stronger, faster the taps fly.  The young man picks up the shovel.  One against two, scraaape against tap, tap, tap.  The music swirls higher and higher, louder and louder.  It fills his head, echoes in his ears.
         Tap, tap, scraaape.
         Stomp, clomp, tromp, dump.
         Tap, tap, tap.
         Thump, thump, scraaape.
         Tap, tap, dump.
         Rumble, grumble, bumble, squeak.
         Creak, tap, squeaky-creak.
         It fills the cave, echoes out gloriously.  This must be what an opera sounds like—beautiful, they say, soul-stirring.  But here the music is more practical.
         Tap, tap, scaa—
         Crack!
         A new sound.  It makes a hitch in the music.  The rhythm is thrown.  He pauses.
         Craaaack!—
         Boom.
         Low, purring.  A bass sound.  Like a giant ball rolling their way.  The other men look up, listen.
         Boom.  Gloom.
         With a sudden panic, the men drop their picks.  They grab the Davy lamp.  Clomp stomp clomp stomp.  Running.  Running low to the ground through thick black dust.  He runs after them.
         They know what the rumble means.
         Boom.  Doom.
         Left turn, pass two, left right run.
         Others pour from tunnels.
         Doom, soon.
         Stamp tramp, stamp tramp.
         Feet move quickly.  Breath wheezes from hundreds of bodies.
         Fear. Panic.
         Chaos.
         Shove.  Push.  Stumble.
         Boom, loom. Doom, gloom.
         Soon, tomb.
         The thunder grows louder, louder.
         Stamp tramp stamp tramp.
         The tunnel starts to shake.
         Boom loom, doom gloom, soon tomb.
         A rush of air and soot, pushing him forward—
         He falls.
         The light goes out.
         Doom soon doom tomb.
         Men find their voices.
         Crying.  Screaming.
         Soon Tomb Soon Tomb!
         He scrambles to get up but he can’t find the air in a sea of legs!
         Soon Tomb SOON TOMB!
         Where is the exit?  O God, where is the exit!
         SOON TOMB SOON TOMB SOON TOMB!—
         The roar smashes him, engulfs him, spins him around, flings his body over and over and over in the dark and heat and there’s no air, there’s no air!—

         Silence.  Dark.  Pain.  He tries to move.
         He can’t.
         Time has no authority here.
         Every hour is the same.
         But then—
         Tap.
         Tap.
         Someone is coming.
         Tap.  Tap.
         Someone is coming to get him.
         Tap.  Tap.  Tap, tap.  Tap, tap, tap.
         He listens to the taps.  So faint, so far away.
         But they are coming.
         And so he listens to the music.
         And he waits.