The Marble Mask

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“Joe. You still there? Talk to me, buddy.”

I didn’t open my eyes. It was so dark I felt if I did, more light might fall out than enter, sapping what little energy I had left. I remembered having the same sensation once as a kid, when my brother Leo and I had hidden in one of our father’s grain boxes in the barn, closed the cover over us, and shut out all light and air. Lack of oxygen hadn’t been the issue, though-we were out of there, pale and laughing too loudly, long before suffocation became a threat.

It was darkness that had defeated us-invasive, all-absorbing, reaching in through our wide-open eyes to extract whatever was keeping us alive. Squeezing my lids shut had been like hanging on to a cliff edge with my fingertips.

Which made me wonder if suffocation could be a problem here, entombed as I was. Certainly I felt sleepy, which I’d heard was one of the signs, but then that counted for cold, too, and God knows I was cold.

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