Another Bubble Six

Playing in the dirt,

Can only get you so far,

When the wrench doesn’t want to let up.

At the wrench.

The boy started thinking he couldn’t do it, but as soon as he yanked away the first clump of dirt and saw more of the wrench underneath, he yanked away another clump. Then, another. And another. He shuffled all around the wrench, shoveling clumps of dirt away until the ground he thought had been packed in there to begin with was torn away.

Now fresh dirt ringed the iron wrench. Now it seemed possible to get to the bottom. Now the wrench didn’t look so formidable. And as he clawed away more dirt he wondered why he didn’t think of this before. He’d dig down until he saw what had the wrench caught. Then he’d know if he could move it at all.

The wrench was already around two feet long when he discovered it, and he had guessed at how much was underneath the ground. Using his hands wasn’t the best option, but he was making progress, and so far he uncovered another five inches. He tried just digging around the wrench itself, but the deeper he got the more he had to clear away the edges of the hole so he would have room to dig deeper.

Still, the wrench was buried.

Taking in account the two feet he knew, he was looking at three and a half feet total. The width of the tool was only an inch, with a thickness of a few centimeters. He’d seen wrenches as long as five feet, but those suckers were gigantic all the way around. If this wrench was any longer the thing would be too flimsy to be able to withstand all the pushing and pulling he’d done. And he didn’t forget about the quakes either. No way this thing should have been able to do that to begin with, but then he started to assume that what the wrench was clamped to underground was the origin of those quakes. Some kind of lifeline, he had called it.

So that meant just a few more seconds and he’d reach this line or the head of the wrench. So he stayed in one spot and just shoveled the dirt to the sides of the bowl he created. There was another inch. The surface of the wrench was the same all the way down. It was old but it wasn’t rusting. It wasn’t painted either. The iron didn’t stay smooth, getting lumps that he could only assume were due to age. The lumps were just as hard as the wrench, so he didn’t get carried away with them being strange growths or some kind of space eggs.

After seeing the guy with the funny hair and his space ship, as well as the guy with the mirror who could jump really high, he was well within his rights to jump into such assumptions, but in his gut he knew the wrench itself had to be normal. He just had to dig to the prize.

There was another inch uncovered. Now he was digging a small trench in the bottom of the bowl. He was nearing four feet. He paused once to grab the wrench and shake it, but as before, it wouldn’t move, and he got the vague sensation of a rumble starting up, so he left the thing alone. But as he started to uncover the next inch, his mind was going over the fact that the wrench didn’t feel flimsy at all.

Maybe it wasn’t a normal wrench. Maybe those bumps were something strange. Maybe this thing went further than he would be able to dig.

“But that’s crazy.” he uttered a breathless chuckle. He had put his hands together to make a shovel shape and was pulling the dirt toward him. “It’s just…a….”

All there was to see below the next level of ground was more wrench. Had he reached five feet yet? He kept shoveling. And he was laughing to himself. “It’s not just a wrench, is it? I knew it! It’s something else. What is it? What is it?”

The next mound of dirt he flung went into his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and coughed, wiping at his face and spitting the dirt from his mouth. Then he reached down and shoveled another clump out of the trench. He stopped when he saw that even after he cleared some dirt away, the loose dirt along the sides of the trench was falling back in. When he examined the upper parts of the trench and the surrounding bottom of the bowl, all he saw was loose dirt, tendrils of it slipping back in, thwarting his attempt to ever reach five feet of wrench.

Now that he was taking a look around, he also noticed that his head was totally submerged inside the bowl. So was the top half of his body. He was keeping himself from falling face first into the trench by propping himself up on his elbows, but with that posture, he was only able to move his forearms so much, shoveling little amounts of dirt out, but with the dirt falling back in, he was making no progress. He reached and pressed his hands to either side of the bowl and pushed himself upright. He sat upon his calves and stared down into the hole.

It was a pathetic looking hole. There was the one part at his knees that was cleared away more than the rest, and still, the wrench stood tall in its weird slant toward the town.

“I don’t get it.” he scoffed. “How does this thing even work?”

And then it occurred to him, and when it did, he felt like the biggest idiot in the world. But he didn’t let that bother him. He scooted to the edge, throwing his feet into the bowl. Seated, he was able to anchor himself as he grabbed the wrench in both hands.

“Okay,” he said and took in a deep breath. Then he pulled upward.

Of course, the rumble started, but he ignored it. The loose dirt fell down into the trench, but that didn’t matter. “With this much of it uncovered,” he grunted, “I have to be close. And if I can’t twist it, then I can just pull it from the line. Simple as that.”

But he pulled and the quake made the trees on either side of the clearing hiss.

“Oh no you don’t!” he scoffed and jumped up from the edge of the hole to stand. With all the strength in his back, he tightened his grip on the wrench and pulled, pushing with his legs as well.

The world blurred and the noise was starting to sound muffled. He knew he would lose feeling in his hands, but as long as everything kept shaking, he’d know that he still had it in his hands. So he pulled and thought of nothing else, or at least, it was his intent to keep his mind free of distraction. Distractions like doubt, and the thing about doubt was, just as soon as it found a weakened spot in a structure and slipped in, it began to take over.

Then the questions began. 

Why wasn’t it coming up? There was enough dirt removed, right? What was the deal? How deep did it really go? He thought he could feel how long the wrench was, that the end of it was just another five inches underneath the dirt. He wanted to see the lifeline but more than that he just wanted this wrench to be normal. There was no way it could be stuck like this. There was the gap in the head, right? It was big enough to slip right onto the lifeline. Then all one would have to do would be to twist back and forth. That was supposed to be the hard part.

But then what if the setup was different? What if the end of the wrench was the circular ring fastened around a bolt? That this spot in the clearing was either the end or the beginning of a lifeline. That conjured up a whole other scenario. He’d have to dig some more and find the head of the wrench for sure to know which way the line was going.

“What is it?” he cried, unable to stop himself from pulling. He wanted it to come out now! He didn’t want to wait anymore! “What is it, really?”

;Qu� 

Next Chapter: Sobering