DSA 61

Recorded 1978 A.D.
Disclosed 2013 A.D.

We creep into the narrow opening that leads to the castle. It is like being swallowed by a giant, gaping clam. Everything has to work. Our equipment, our muscles, our hearts, our brains. With no open water above our heads, we are sentenced to success. According to Benjamin, we must first head for a chimney-like shaft, down which we must descend vertically to a depth of 165 feet. Down into the realm of nitrogen narcosis - the rupture of the deep - which befuddles the mind. I grasp the line left behind by Benjamin. My head is buzzing and my ears ache, but I cannot slow down. As I sink further into the abyss, some words of Emerson run through my mind: 'Under each deep, a lower deep opens.' I find reassurance in the bubbles. In this gloomy underworld, they are symbols of life. While we wait at the bottom of the chimney, a companion goes to light the long tunnel that lies ahead of us. With his torches, from another realm above, he recalls Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven and gave it to man. He mixes fire and water to bring the light of knowledge and the warmth of wisdom to a dark, forbidding world, until now, undisturbed by thought. I strain to fight the narcosis and try to clear my head. My friends around me are mere shadows in this eternal night. The ceiling above us is an ever-present reminder that we are trapped inside the earth. And under us, for most of the time, there is no floor, only black water of untold depth: A dark abyss into which we would sink hopelessly if we lost consciousness. In this opressive darkness, I feel what fragile creatures we are and desperatly cling to the narrow flickering beams of truth I know to be our lights. In my confused brain, I feel we have entered inferno, and the gates are about to close in upon us.