They Look Like People

Foreman likes to hoist new ones up, see what they’re made of. Sometimes stone, sometimes metal, some a ceramic we don’t know how to crack or look at. One or two of us have stashed a rare-looking one, though all the big ones go upstairs, foreman says those ones are special. Today, though, the excavation floor was all deep stone and dirt, bare rock between generations. Sometimes the days spent picking through it all stretched into weeks. Foreman said we were passing through geological eons.

 Then how did all we’re digging up get so far down?

 Heard weird things about the guys who transport big ones. There were some missing, everyone knew that, but whispers had been that some guys got put in the hospital and weren’t coming out. Some guys had hurt others, tried to do things with the convoys, tried to steer them the wrong way. Wanting to steal a small one was regular, sure, but what would have to go wrong with a guy to make him wild about a big one? You’d get yourself killed. Us miners, we have it easy. Just dig and keep out of the way and it all just passes by easy.

 Why did they look like people? Why were they bigger than people?

 I let the drill pound away at the floor. Who was I to question? I was getting paid big, not just to drill, neither, but to keep my mouth shut. Shut mouth don’t ask questions. I smiled at the drill. Paid big. The stone flew by my face like wild bullets and I kept smiling. I could get a pool at the old house for the kids, I could pay that pet deposit, I could get Sherry a diamond, and a car…

 “Hey, man, what the fuck are you doing?”

 I flipped switch and pulled back. Who was yelling? I turned to yell back, then did a take, turned again, did a double take—holy God. I dropped my drill, I didn’t care how much it costed. This was the biggest one yet.