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Story and artwork by
Dean Adams Curtis Archaeologist Maria Demeter knows there are more artifacts to be discovered in her excavation, but she's out of time. With tomorrow's dawn will come the trucks. The workers will hoist away her camp, equipment and artifacts. Then the lower sluice gates of the new dam will be closed, the water level will begin to rise behind it, and the archaeological site she is standing on will be submerged forever under hundreds of feet of water. Maria smells the damp earth as she descends for the last time into her excavation. She senses the people who lived in this valley 8000 years ago are somehow close around her.
"Nothing!" she cries out. "Goddess bless it!"
Exhausted, she leans back against a wall of the excavation and slides down it to the hard clay floor.
Collapsed into a position that almost looks like she's ready to give birth, she
stares blankly at the section a far wall aimlessly illuminated by her light. She exhales deeply. What's that?
The head of a green snake appears from one of the holes Maria has pounded into
the far wall. For a few moments Maria is captivated by the motions of the snake
in the light from her light. Then a realization overwhelms her. There's a room
behind that wall!
"Sweet charity," her voice says to her, as adrenaline hits her veins,
levitating her from her seated position on the excavation floor and launching her with determined focus in pursuit of a
breakthrough. The green snake quickly retracts its head into the safety of the
hole, leaving Maria swinging with extraordinary resolve.
"Come on!" Maria begs the earth.
The earth seems to obey her. First with a give, then a crack, it begins to yield to her
relentless blows. Maria throws her full weight behind the swing of her hand axe
and gives an energetic roar. This final impact of her axe point causes the wall
to crumble before her eyes.
"Holy
Mother of God!" Maria exclaims, as she examines a chamber that has remained buried
for 9000 years. "Thanks guys," she says to the green snakes who fill
the chamber. "I wouldn't have found this without you." |
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Extraordinary ancient artifacts and wall paintings seem to jump forward as they're exposed by the beam of her light. "Wow," Maria says to herself, with a smile on her face and in her soul. |
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Next episode: "A Crack in Time"
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With Daniel she has carefully scraped
layer after layer of earth away from the walls and floor of the site, examining every scrap of soil. Now that her excavation time has
run out she lays into the hard walls with the sharp tip of her hand axe. Chunk after chunk of
uniformly resistant soil breaks
away, revealing nothing but more dark brown ground. Her arm begins to ache, yet she answers the sensation
with still stronger swings of her axe. As her right arm nears failure, she grasps
her axe with both hands and attacks the terra firma with all her strength, flinging
herself from an assault on one wall to a clash with another.
"I
knew it," Maria
says, swinging her light into a new room. 