Something happens when steel connects with earth. The old years shatter. The ores come free. The men surge with pride. And harder, and harder, and harder they strike. A story of survival turned into a song.

Rhythm.

Clink. Clink. clink.

Brothers, side by side. “One more and the day is done!” Sweating. Cleaving. “What do you think mom’s made us for dinner?”

“Roast pork and potatoes.”

“God… Sounds like a feast. I can’t wait.” Clink. Clink.

The pickaxe trembles. Both of them feel it. Their seasoned ears make them stop cold. “It’s been a long week, let’s hurry up, Sam, this place is starting to make me hear things.”

“Me too.”

Another strike. But this one is nervous. This one falters, its fine point catching in the black rock.

Survival is a circuit. A series of interdependent movements that decide if and when another meal will come, and then the next day, it begins again. When will we taste our last? Drink our last? Who will be beside us at the end of the world?

“Leave,” Sam whispers, “run, now, and tell mom I said I love her—”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Damn it, I need you to listen to me… I’m stuck. I can’t let go. These walls are about to come down over our heads. There’s no time, brother. Make a run for it—now!”

It’s not the pickaxe, or those thick, calloused hands that tremble now. A groan breaks free. An unseen creature from prehistory, before man and his machines, roaring—claiming the mountainside. Why do such little beings risk everything for rubble and rock?

“I’m not going—”

“Nathan!”

“I will not walk this earth without you.”

Some hours into the evening a mother washes her hands after preparing dinner, and there’s a knock at the door. An unfamiliar rhythm. The knock of a stranger.

Tap. Tap. Tap. “Miriam… Miriam Ivers? There’s been an accident, please open up.”

But the old woman, she’s heard so many songs… None as potent as the song of her twin sons; their pounding hearts full of dreams, the dirty boots that kick when they free their feet after a grueling day’s work. And that little inkling flares in her chest, because she knows.

So she takes a moment to herself, glancing at both plates, the brown slices of pork bleeding savory juices into the piled mashed potatoes…

And she breathes. She breathes.

And the world has never been as silent, even as the stranger continues to knock.