January 1988
Almost everyone in the building had gone home, and I was packed to leave the next morning. I borrowed a blanket from the girl across the hall, though it was warm that night. The bare bed felt awkward, but I think it was not long before I was entirely asleep.
In a field of high dead grass I discovered something man-made: A rusted iron wheel above a round concrete shaft which peeked a half a foot or so above the ground. I turned the wheel, felt it come loose, and opened the hatch. I do not recall the descent, but I must have lowered myself down somehow. Part-way down the shaft was an open doorway. The jamb was wood; the room beyond like a room from a house — tastefully decorated, dry, artificially heated, artificially lit.
I jumped from the shaft, through the doorway, into the room. I told myself “shaft, first door, first room.” With the palms of my hands, I pushed into the cushions of the sofa which took up most of one of the long walls. They were soft and dry and old. Whoever had made this place had done a good job of protecting it from the elements. There was no moisture, no sign of being underground. I felt that I was in a solid place. I went back to the doorway (there was no door, I noticed, just hinges) and peered down the shaft. I saw a doorway one story below, 90° around the shaft, and the floor of its room. The shaft ended there, it appeared. I made a note to myself to explore down there, but retreated for the time being into the first room. I wanted to memorize everything about it (two lamps with shades depicting pictures of birds, oriental rug, polished hardwood floor, etc.) — I was so amazed. When I felt that I had appreciated this first room to a reasonable fullness, I opened the door across from where I had entered. There was a darkly lit, slightly musty little stairwell which led down towards ?
I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs, and thought to myself that I was on about the same level as the room I had seen at the bottom of the shaft. I resolved to find my way to it somehow. The doorway led to a rather sparsely decorated room of about the same dimensions as the first. I told myself “shaft, first room, stairs, second room.” I was rather disappointed with the emptiness of this second room, and thought that perhaps this place I had entered was considerably smaller and barer than I had first imagined. I crossed the room, felt the floor bounce with my steps, like it does in the upper floors of a building. There were more rooms, another floor at least, below me. I resolved to find them too, in time. Beyond the door was a hallway, gorgeously lit, ablaze with chandeliers, candles, white painted walls. There were intricate sculptures on stands beside doors, thick carpet on the floor. Nothing I had seen so far had even hinted at something of this magnitude.
One of the doors some distance down the hall opened suddenly, and my friend Scott walked, or stumbled, slowly backwards into the hall. He turned, saw me, and moved quickly towards me. He looked excited, almost feverish. He seemed so small, younger than I thought appropriate. I had not seen him in so long. There was no way he had followed me in, I decided. But how had he gotten here? Some other way, or long before me. He said, “Brian, I was down on level 10. You should see what they have there. Have you noticed how this placed is laid out? It’s incredible where you can get to once you figure it out.” I had not figured it out, and felt a little jealous. He showed me another shaft, at the end of the hall, and another one several rooms away which made a triangle with the other two. He told me how stories alternated off the shafts and how to get further when the shafts appeared to bottom out. When I said how beautiful this place was, he told me that it didn’t even get interesting until level 4. I wanted to ask him how he had gotten here. He seemed to know so much about this place that I wanted to understand. How did he figure it out? How long had he been here? I trusted that he would show me these answers.
He pulled me through the place. Down several levels, through holes in walls, behind sliding doors in ceilings of rooms reached only by walking backwards onto furniture. There were strange plants, and, further below, slow-moving animals which would retrieve objects for him and gather silently in packs in darkened rooms. I paused and guessed that I was on level 7. To get back up I need only take the second shaft to level 4. It was really beautiful, the way it was designed.
At level 13 there were floating, living lamps and rotating rooms. Scott led me to a hallway with a ceiling so low that I could rest my elbows on it. He had me hold two doorknobs and tilt my head back. I relaxed my neck and he positioned my ears along some unseen line. From far away on level 15 he spoke to me like this, and I could hear him as if he were inside my head. He explained where he was standing relative to me and I understood how the sound from his mouth reached my ears. I tilted my head, and his voice slowed down, inhumanly, as I had figured it would.
At level 21 I again became confused. The pattern that I had so easily discerned had changed unrecognizably. Scott chided me, and explained that the layout shifted subtly and continuously from here down, but that the shifts themselves followed a pattern that I would soon understand. Here at level 21 I noticed that we were both sweating heavily, that I had shrunk down to his size. My hands were smooth like a child’s. My eyes gleamed when I looked in a mirror. I was excited when I saw that I could walk away from Scott at my will only to know where he would be on what level at any time in the future. We met randomly, moving in seconds from level to level, composing a sort of music with our motions that only we could understand. We collected objects which fit together obviously to make machines. We built openings in walls with them. Somewhere on the edge of level 35, he built a hole which led only to itself, and climbed in, as I laughed. He emerged shiny, composed entirely of polished metals, and I understood why, though I do not now. Holding his hands close together, he formed a light which attracted point-like animals from the air. They flitted about and in their flight we saw the pattern of the levels below us, where even Scott had never been.
He immediately opened a hole in the floor and descended, but I did not follow. I had trusted that he knew where we had been, but his eagerness to venture to unknown places showed me that he did not. Known and unknown were the same to him. He had betrayed my trust. We argued briefly, and he was clearly crushed that I would not follow him. I expected him to come to his senses and return with me to the surface (I did not know how) so that we could go over what we had seen so far. He saw no need for this. Finally, we parted. I saw the hole in the floor shrink to a circle of glass and through it saw Scott descending, growing smaller and younger. He merged with an animal there, and I saw no more. I turned and began the task of retracing my steps.
I awoke. It was the third night. He had been dead three days.
Some context: Scott was a childhood friend of mine who died in a tragic car accident as a teenager. This story is my attempt to recount a dream I had about him shortly after his death, in my dorm at college. I honestly did not realize at the time how literally it expressed my fear of spending eternity in the ground.