Was I dead? I haven’t felt anything of a kind. I blink and I rub my eyes, it is impossible! At least a shadow or something, a steam, a whiff, a little something, that could justify my experience. Nothing! Totally bewildered, with my hands and feet “cold as ice”, absolutely disappointed and played-out, with an immense hole inside me, I get away, but my foot “clamps” into something. I wasn’t far from having a heart attack. I set the lamp towards the ground. On the ground there was a wet owl that climbed down as I told, getting me to paroxysm. On an instant, the animal instinct inside me hurled towards the owl to rip it away, that’s how angry I was, especially after her “landing”, but seeing her so small and helpless I took her carefully and put her in a hollow from the tree. I was hardly recovering from my human state. Although, my lamp faded again, I kept going ahead in the dark, getting my thoughts away from the momentary reality that suggested, that in case it would rain with the same force, downhill, at “Iobanel” and “Saveta’s” bridge, I would have some work with the bourns. I passed “Iobanel” but at “Saveta’s” bridge because of the dirty catch the alluviums obstructed, and the water that was coming from “Poderei” was divided in two. So, I won’t get my feet too wet, I thought which way to go, and heard under the obstructed bridge some gasping. Oh, my God, are you testing me again? It wasn’t just a simple estimation; the noises were coming right from under the bridge. How can this be, if the bridge if full of water, till above?!! Do I without any fail have to go insane in this morning?!! Please, God, don’t leave me! The moan and gasping didn’t continue. I “requested” again the carbide lamp light. As the sounds didn’t end I felt that my senses were leaving me. Not even a distance of a hundred meters was from those two places of challenging my mental health. As the noises from under the bridge amplified I had to get closer … With the strength I had left I put my hat on the lamp so that the wind won’t blow it. With a hard to hide sickening I lay on my knees in the clay soil from the lip of the bridge. I push the lamp forward, under the obstructed bridge and try to pull my self through the mud under the bridge. A little earlier seeing the owl I calmed down. Now, when I saw that scarecrow full of mud, a roar broke out from my being has covered all the storm’s noises on an area of two kilometers. Don’t believe I exaggerate but until that morning I haven’t seen people “dressed up” in mud in the light of a carbide lamp. I shouted out at “him” so that I would cover my fear:
– Who on earth are you?

– Oh my God, you don’t recognize me?
– Mister Josef, is that you?
– Yes it’s me, God forbid me!
– Well, what on earth are you doing full of mud under the bridge?
– What should I do? I had something to drink and I lost my hat, I was looking for it … I bent giving him my hand and drew him outside, obviously without hat. We greeted and went each on his way.
Wasting so much time, the water grew in huge quantities, becoming true torrents. To get at the embarkation place I had to climb up to “Poderei”. The lamp faded again. I was looking for other lights, of my workmates, that were heading to the same place. I was passing near Alexander, Lipan and Sovre’s houses, which were built on a hammock lip, which made the road lower than the houses. They were in the same shift as me. Alexander’s house was all lighted. I was heading with my eyes at the ground looking to avoid as much as I could, water. Reaching, in the end, the car, it seemed that people were grouped and were whispering among themselves. All this grouping and crew discussions had a lugubrious atmosphere. I said hello and asked: “What are they whispering about?” They stared at me, after that one of them asks me:
– Through were did you come at the car?
– Over “Poderei”, at Alexander, “Sovre” and others, places.
– Was there any light at Alexander?
– There was. And what if?
– But, didn’t you ask yourself why was there light at Alexander, if he’s the driver for a week? Did you take a look at their nut tree?
– Who cares to look at a nut tree when one’s heading for the shift?
– There was where Alexander hung himself …
Then I realized that if I had drawn myself up, I would have stared up, I could see him hanged. With no other words with the feeling of a huge despair, of losing a man, a very good mate and mine digger, but whom did not bear the “discharging” shock. It seemed that also the car was sick, it was hardly getting up to the mine. In the car I was snooze following the road with its curves, in my own imagination, to the mine. The engine was turned up to maximum; there were the last hundred meters before stopping.

The first signs of a rainy morning, the first blink of light “greeted” the workers that start again another turn. I got off the car and I was walking at the head entrance when I met the foreman.
– Good day!
– God help us, he answers, continuing:
– I would like to ask you to come in my office.
– When?
– It will be good if you would come now.
He left; also, extremely sad (who wouldn’t be sad to lose a man like Alexander?).
– Boy, what I am telling you I would have to turn it into an excusable cover for the existing administration, but I cannot pretend for anyone’s sake, especially now when, you know what happened with Alexander and I don’t want to feel guilty of others wheeling and dealing. So, the news is very unpleasant. You were also “given off” and I believe it won’t be long and we will meet again, but not in the mine. They will turn off the mines, those that don’t know what they’re doing and how much harm they are bringing, but all this have no point now. You make your liquidation and give it to me. God help you!
And he left, leaving me in his office with my liquidation file. I was hesitating. I didn’t quite know which way to go and tacking a look in the office I see a guy that was looking like me but he was with the hair grey. Then I thought to my self that I would like to look like him in my old age. With an incommensurable regret I realized the “old man” was I, the nigh teen years old one.
This was my young mate confession, the one with grey hair. I believe there are not other type of comments left and still, to get to be the grave digger of a mine diggers generation; maybe some should be ashamed of this catastrophe and don’t you believe that they have the right to breath easily after this type of “action.
It’s not fair that only the mine diggers pay for all, while others adjudge in their own accounts the COUNTRY. I have never understood what kind of people are those that start to destroy, not only that they don’t have anything to replace with where they demolished, but they don’t even think to ask themselves: “How these two things would look together. What they destroy, they may consider that others should make or replace.”