TANTALUM / Chapter 1

FREE PREVIEW

TANTALUM / Chapter 1

FREE PREVIEW

Tell anyone how much you hate this place—you get “Well, no place is perfect.” Tell anyone you want to leave—you get “Go where?” Tell anyone working like this exhausts you—you get “Work builds character.” Tell anyone you feel like you're some kind of a slave you get "Ever see life in the other mines?" Tell anyone you feel empty—you get “We work to provide for those who came before us" while pointing to The Tower. Tell anyone you think there might be a better way to live—you get "This is the way it’s always been." Tell anyone you have no choice but to dig—you get “Choice? Go ahead. Stop shoveling. See what happens.”

In this place: we stop digging—we get buried alive. Get caught in a collapse—you’re done.

No matter what you say or how you say it, kabooms bring tantalite and dirt down into this pit town. Even with no kabooms—dirt skids and slides when it wants to. So we live to dig. All day. Every day. Every night. We shovel the dirt into bags that can hold more than two thousand shovelfuls. We hook them to the crane cables and wave. The crane hooks float the tantalum bags up and over the pit rim. The Tower watches all of this. All the time.

Now—in the dark—trying to save my breath. I am buried alive.

“Collapses don't exist,” The Tower says, only slow workers who don’t move fast enough exist. The Tower tells us the pit walls are safe. No cause for alarm. Everything’s fine. Keep working.

Twelve shovel-fulls-ago screams of “look out!” and “avalanche!” I pulled my shirt over my head and curled in tight. Me and my shovel team snuffled from view. Two were near the empty bulk bag. They say bags sometimes have air pockets that can save you. They say you want to be near one during a collapse. 

Workers above are probably pushing telescope poles down into the mound. They search for the push back of a body—unconscious, dead, or dying. Survivors have said you try to save air by not yelling. You hope for a telescope to reach you before death does.

When a telescope poler shouts: "Over here!" Everyone digs hard and fast. You try to save a friend, a family member: it can backfire. Shovels have nearly the same kill rate as an avalanche. You could be killing while digging.

Me: I've been there. Everyone runs to the collapse mound with shovels. The sound of one shovel shush-shrick becomes hundreds of shush-shricks. Dig. Lift. Toss. Dig. Lift. Toss.  Muscles pulled. Blisters popped. A race against an oxygen clock.

Tell someone you don’t want to die in here—you get “You don’t die here. You retire in The Tower.”