The longer we dig, the more bones we find. Our machines bore into the lightless soul of our world and through their artificial catacombs, we find the undeniable roots of our history. Bones of beasts slaughtered for food and hides by stone knives. Bones of things giant and ancient, long turned to stone. But it is the bones of people that grip us. Their digits cling to us as we descend the smoothed-out tunnels left in the wake of the machines. We expected to find at least a few, close to the surface. Burial mounds, new and old. Perhaps even primitive humans concealed by the tides of time and the folding of the earth, pushed deep below. So why, so far into the depths of the earth, do we keep finding them? Far beyond where any force could plow them from the surface into this interior. And they appear with increasing frequency as we go. More and more we find pressed together in greater numbers. They bear the tattered remains of clothes. Precious trinkets. Jars of things deemed hallowed by their culture. But we find no place for these subterraneans. Where are their homes, their cities? From where did they come? Are they us? Ancestors or offshoots of evolution? Our speculation has run in circles. It’s brewing up a tornado, now that we have found the first words in our language, scattered between their corpses. The machines continue to burrow, uncaring for what we have discovered. The more I know, the less I understand.
Paddy Dobson
31st August 2020