The First Rebreather-Big Big Train

In a place where the river banks draw near men work a heading to the west. Where streams like giants’ fingers close from the hills to the emptiness beneath, to the depths of the mere. Morning light midwinter sun underneath; the river song. In a place where the river banks draw close men break stone to make new ground. Light and air are hard down deep to find engines work to hold the water back to the edge of the mere. ‘Run boys run toward the light; the river’s in, the tunnel’s in’; Here she comes the sleeper wakes, ten thousand years she lay in wait for this. Every night their dreams were filled with the fear of the river breaking in. But this was not a river god, this was something rising from the deep, from the depths of the mere. ‘Run boys run make for the light, save yourselves, the tunnel’s in.’ Here he comes the first rebreather, like a mummer, like a souler (come to save them.) Rising up to the height of the river at flood tide. Engines fail, lost to the water as silence falls. This man will walk into darkness, one foot in front of the other, into the unsounded depths of the heading; into the fifth circle of hell, with no light to lead him home, man is all alone at the end. This man will walk into darkness without fear of what lurks in the shadows. Watching the surface grow quite still, waiting for hope at the ninth hour, man all alone in the darkness. Here he comes: the first rebreather.