Counting Rungs

The rungs were thirty centimeters apart.

Three hundred thirty-three rungs to a hundred meters. At a hundred thirty meters a day, four hundred thirty-three rungs a day. To the top, twelve thousand six hundred and some.

On the third day he stopped counting. Count long enough and you start climbing in order to count.

Instead he decided to count the glass cylinders.

One tube at the end of each day. Cut the back of his hand with the knife, let it drip in there. The cut closes right away. Because it closes, he changed the spot every day.

Thirty tubes. Counting a number that went down was easier than counting one that went up.

＊

On the third day he fell.

His right foot slipped, his weight went onto his arms, his arms stretched out straight, and his fingers came off.

He fell four meters. His side hit a rung below him and stopped him.

There was the sound of a rib breaking.

It did not hurt.

Still holding the rung, Marlow pressed his side with his fingers. Something inside shifted under the pressure.

He remembered Vesta's voice. Ribs don't knit in three days.

In three days, it knit.

＊

On the seventh day there was a side passage.

A hole in the wall of the shaft, wide enough for one man. When he put the light in, it was a small room.

There were bones on the floor.

In the shape of a man. Still sitting, back against the wall. Almost nothing left of the clothes.

Beside it was a leather bag. Glass cylinders inside.

Eight of them. All empty.

Marlow looked at the face of the bones. There was no face left. Only, the shape of the skull seemed like his own. Maybe it only seemed that way.

Eight tubes' worth got this man to this height.

This was nine hundred meters. Eight days for nine hundred. A hundred twelve meters a day. The arithmetic came out about right.

Which meant there had been no ninth tube.

Marlow took three empty tubes out of his own bag and set them in a row beside the bones.

There was no reason to set them there. After he did, he felt a little better.

＊

On the fourteenth day the rungs stopped.

For about forty meters, only the holes were left in the wall. The rungs had not come out. It looked like a stretch where none had ever been driven in.

He ran cord through the holes, made loops, put his feet in them and climbed.

Forty meters took a whole day. That day he did not make a hundred thirty meters. He made forty-eight.

He used one tube.

The arithmetic broke.

＊

On the twenty-second day he dropped the bag.

He was shifting it back onto his shoulder and the strap came out of his hand.

The bag hit a rung ten meters down, bounced, fell again, and disappeared somewhere.

Marlow went down. Forty minutes to go down eighty meters, and he found the bag on a place that formed a kind of ledge.

He opened it.

Nine tubes. Three of them broken.

Six left. Counting today, he needed nine days' worth.

Three short.

＊

He did not use one on the twenty-second day, or the twenty-third.

On the night of the twenty-fourth day, he put his hand into the very bottom of his pack.

A cloth-wrapped tube met his fingers. The one he kept in a separate place.

He pulled it out and set it on his knee.

He put his hand on the stopper.

With his hand on it, he did not move for a while.

Sam's got a little sister. She's only fourteen. Lives next door to us.

He heard it in Gus's voice.

Marlow took his hand off the stopper, wrapped the cloth back around the tube, and returned it to the very bottom.

Putting it back took three times as long as taking it out.

On the twenty-fourth day he did not use one either.

On the morning of the twenty-fifth day, Marlow noticed that he was counting rungs.

He had stopped counting on the third day. He had no memory of starting again.

Three thousand two hundred twenty-seven. Three thousand two hundred twenty-eight.

The numbers were going on by themselves inside his head. He tried to stop them and they did not stop.

That evening, he said something out loud to himself.

“I shall take the liberty of stopping here for today.”

In the dark of the shaft, his own voice came back four times.

All four times, said the same way.

Marlow drew the knife and cut his left wrist. Cut it deep. Blood came.

He pulled the stopper and let it drip into the cut.

One of the six.

The moment it dripped, the blood around the cut turned into black grains and fell away in a scatter. The sound of them falling went on and on somewhere below.

Then it got cold.

Cold, he thought.

Still clinging to the wall, Marlow laughed that the cold had come. Laughed out loud.

＊

Five left. From the twenty-sixth day to the thirtieth, exactly five days' worth. Enough if he dropped none.

He dropped one.

On the evening of the twenty-seventh day, his fingers slipped as he pulled a stopper. The tube vanished downward. No sound came back.

He got through that day's share with another one. Two left, and three days to cover.

Marlow decided. The twenty-eighth day, he would not use one. On a day he did not use one, he would not talk.

If he did not talk, that manner of speaking would not come out. If it did not come out, at least he would be able to tell for himself.

That was no solution. It was the only thing he could think of.

＊

On the twenty-ninth day, it got bright above him.

At first he thought his eyes were tricking him. Spend thirty days in the dark and your eyes start making light on their own.

Only, that light did not move.

As he climbed, it came clearer. Round. High up.

The mouth of the shaft.

He used the twenty-ninth day's share. One was left.

Cut, dripped, stopper back in, empty tube into the bag.

He did not throw it away. Because he remembered the bones at nine hundred meters.

＊

At noon on the thirtieth day, his hand came over the mouth of the shaft.

The rim was metal. The same metal as below, the kind that does not rust.

Marlow pulled himself up with his arms. Partway up, his arms stopped.

They did not stop because his strength ran out.

The light was too bright.

After thirty days' worth of dark, the light outside was like being hit. He could not keep his eyes open.

With his eyes shut, Marlow went over the rim and rolled onto the ground.

The ground was warm.

And it was flat.

He felt it with his palm. Not sand. Not rock either. Something hard and flat, with seams in it.

In the bag, the empty cylinders knocked together. He had used the last one that morning.

End of Chapter 17