At Cargill salt mine, two-thousand feet under Lake Erie, on worksite. Miners are building out new space in the underground tunnel network.

DENNY. Welcome to the abode of the righteous!

INSPECTOR. Well I don’t know about that, but I do feel lighter; you know we experience less gravity down here, closer to the earth’s core?

DENNY. Oh, no that’s just the weight of your sins lifting.

INSPECTOR. Ah of course, of course. Denny. (extends hand)

DENNY. (shakes hand) Lisa. Cutest Compliance Officer in Cleveland.

INSPECTOR. I can actually taste the salt on my lips…or is that sulfur?

DENNY. Oh you got a few more stops till you hit brimstone, dear.

INSPECTOR. That descent, Jesus…feels like lowering a lobster into a boiling pot. I started looking over your Inspection History to distract me and calm down a bit; looks like we’re finally getting to a better place with you guys, bringing you up to modern standards.

DENNY. Oh, we’re modernists, we really are. Trendy, really. I mean, look at our swanky office space. We got bean bag chairs around here somewhere if ya want one…

INSPECTOR. (hands citations packet to DENNY) We also finished up employee interviews today. You’ve certainly built a loyal team around you.

DENNY. (looks through packet) Yep. I find fear-based love to be the strongest.

INSPECTOR. Perhaps that’s what accounts for your immaculate Worksite Injury and Illness records.

DENNY. Oh but also you wouldn’t want to discount the many hours of MSHA mandatory safety training modules we completed…

INSPECTOR. Yes, yes true, true…

DENNY. I mean, otherwise we’d have to consider all that a remarkable waste of time and resources… 

INSPECTOR. Well, Denny, I don’t need much of your extremely valuable time today, just a few signatures please. (points to page in packet) Here. And here please.

DENNY. (signs two forms, pauses at third) What’s this section?

INSPECTOR. There should be a page heading…

DENNY. ‘Posting Requirement’ citation?

INSPECTOR. Correct.

DENNY. Thirteen thousand six hundred dollars per violation?

INSPECTOR. (reaches for sheet to inspect) I don’t know, what does it say?

DENNY. (withdraws packet from INSPECTOR) You don’t know? You just handed me this. It says thirteen thousand six hundred dollars per violation, that’s what it says.

INSPECTOR. Ok… yep. Then…then that’s what it is.

DENNY. Why didn’t you say something?—

INSPECTOR. That’s what this part is, the notice of violations–

DENNY. –When we did the walkthrough. Why didn’t you tell me then? I woulda put the damn things up right then and there–

INSPECTOR. –The walkthrough isn’t the time to start thinking about meeting compliance.

DENNY. Lisa. Miss. Our walls are made of salt, right? You see?

INSPECTOR. Right.

DENNY. Right. So where the hell are we gonna tape up a poster?

INSPECTOR. I don’t have that answer Denny. You had all month to ask these kinds of questions after the audit.

Pause.

DENNY. Where is the reason in this Lisa, help me out here. Please help me understand. 

INSPECTOR. I assure you, every decision in our agency is backed by volumes of research. There is no part of our audit that is not grounded in data analysis.

Pause. (DENNY walks around reading report, exasperated; INSPECTOR follows.)

I know all this is just a ‘bureaucratic inconvenience’ to you guys, but do you read the memos we send out? The weekly bulletin? 

DENNY. (impatiently) We get em’ yeah.

INSPECTOR. I’m sure you do. So you know about the two miners who died at Avery Island last week, right? Were drilling, trying to intercept water leaks, and a massive block of salt and anhydrite fell and crushed them. Both died instantly. I know you love your guys and they love you, and you’d never put them in danger down here by taking shortcuts. Right?

DENNY. (dismissively) Yeah. 

Pause. (DENNY, distressed and exasperated, paces reading packet.)

You know, I do worry about their safety. I do. (points upwards) I worry about it up there. 

INSPECTOR. (dismissively) Oh yeah? How’s that Denny. 

DENNY. Every time that elevator door opens, we’re visited by some new confusing nonsense. I never could figure your world out. Never got it.

INSPECTOR. (cynically) That bad huh.

DENNY. Yeah. Yeah, it is. There’s no shame. No shame in your world. 

INSPECTOR. Right well I don’t know what to tell ya. I really don’t. This isn’t your first audit and review– 

DENNY. –It’s the brightness. The god damn brightness. It’s blinding. Up there, everything’s washed in a fake, fluorescent…awareness. Everything’s hidden beneath a constant blinding glare. Your eyes get so damn constricted, they’re imploding. It’s agonizing, the pain. You get lost, you can’t focus on what you’re doing. Can’t focus on what matters. 

INSPECTOR. Denny, it just takes a sec for the body to adapt to the light. 

DENNY. I don’t want to ‘adapt’. I don’t want to adapt to that…naked…shame. It’s shameful. Me and my guys down here, it’s the only place that makes any damn sense, only place with any decency.

INSPECTOR. I’m sorry I don’t share your opinion about how ‘exceptional’ this place is, Denny. I got a lot of jobs on my docket, visit a dozen worksites a month. Same rules apply down here as anywhere else.

DENNY. The way you see it. Yeah. I gotcha. 

(PAUL returns.)

PAUL. Hey chief – we’re finished packing up blasters from the new corridor, full set of girders are bolted up; can I get that key? Need to lock up for the day—

DENNY. —hey hold up Paul, hold up sec. Actually…this is actually nice timing, this will work out nicely. Hey. Lisa. You got a sec before you’re off to the next gig?

INSPECTOR. (impatiently) For what, Denny.

DENNY. It’ll just be a sec. I wanna show you our newest corridor, show you some work you’ll actually be impressed by, you can see what this whole operation is really about. 

INSPECTOR. Denny, I gotta–

DENNY. –It’ll just take a minute. Just a minute. You should know about this anyways, for the next audit. It’ll be a big priority in the next report, I’m sure of it. 

INSPECTOR. (skeptical) I have a minute.

(DENNY, PAUL and INSPECTOR walk cautiously to new corridor.)

DENNY. Didn’t exist till an hour ago. You’ll be the first inhabitant.

INSPECTOR. Ok guys, well I’m trusting you here. I have no idea how this world works.

DENNY. Yes, yes, we know. You’re certainly out of your element dear, we’ll take care of ya. 

(DENNY removes chain barrier from dark recessed area; DENNY and PAUL lead INSPECTOR into the barren area. PAUL leans against wall with wry smile, lights cigarette.)

INSPECTOR. (noticing cigarette) Come on. Not while I’m here, at least, Paul. Ok? We have zero ventilation down here…

PAUL. (gesturing downwards) Oh, in here the smoke sinks down that way, love. We’ve crossed over, you see. 

DENNY. So! Tell us. What do you feel?

INSPECTOR. (unimpressed) It’s…salty.

DENNY. Oh come on, move around a bit. You’re Neil Armstrong right now babe.

INSPECTOR. (indignant smile) Is that right. Hoping these chains are regulation height, look a little low to me, and these–

DENNY. Hey, do something for me, I wanna try something. Put your arms out in front of you. 

INSPECTOR. What? For what? What is this Denny.

DENNY. Just do something for me real quick, just put your arms out like this.

(DENNY extends arms out directly in front with hands open perpendicular to ground. INSPECTOR copies   position.)

Yep, perfect! Just like that. Just like that. Can you feel that?

INSPECTOR. Feel what Denny. 

DENNY. Turn to the right and left. Move your hand around. Feel that?

INSPECTOR. It’s nothing. I feel nothing. (impatiently) I really don’t have time for–

DENNY. Sorry just one sec, one sec…some people can feel it. Try like this. Here.

(DENNY walks into corridor and stands behind INSPECTOR; he puts his arms around the outside of INSPECTOR’s outstretched arms, using her hands to hold an invisible volume.)

How about now? 

Pause. (A haunting alarm washes over INSPECTOR’s face.)

INSPECTOR. (stunned, fearful) I feel it. Oh my god. I feel it. What is that? What is that Denny?

(DENNY walks away from behind INSPECTOR; she maintains position of arms, the invisible volume vibrating in her tensed grip.)

DENNY. What that is, supports two-thousand feet of earth and one of the world’s Great Lakes. See, you got here right after the big bang; we blasted this right out of the nothingness with nitroglycerine and sodium nitrate. 

PAUL. Fresh piece of the cosmos.

INSPECTOR. (trembling) What…what do I do now…what do I do with it. Help me, Denny. Take it. Take it.

(DENNY places hands on outside of INSPECTOR’s and closes them together; stunned and shaken, she relaxes arms.)

DENNY. Before this job, were you at all aware of the twelve square mile underground salt mine expanding out from Cleveland’s shores? Or the two million annual tons of salt trucked outta here all over the country?

INSPECTOR. (shaken) I…well, no. I knew about Cargill, the company…or–

DENNY. –didn’t know about us though, huh.

INSPECTOR. No. No, I didn’t know.

DENNY. And that’s ok! That’s ok. That makes sense. We don’t show up on a single map. Don’t got a tall office building, a big skyscraper; a kid’s sandcastle towers over us. Thousands of people a day fly over us in planes, surveying the planet, ‘inspired by the view’, and they have no idea we exist; that this exists. The entire rhythm of day and night, the whole flimsy concept of time doesn’t know about us.

INSPECTOR. Because…because you’re underground.

DENNY. (lifting up arms, indicating expanse) Because we are the ground. 

PAUL. We are the ground of the world!

(DENNY walks deeper into corridor towards a cluster of structural supports, picks up large wrench.)

DENNY. (stroking INSPECTOR’S arm with wrench) It’s like the veins and arteries running up and down your body, under your pretty, soft skin. It’s so easy to forget we exist. But sink a knife in down below the surface, open up a perspective; you see the pressure we’re under, the constant activity. It spills out everywhere. But, by then…it’s too late, isn’t it?

INSPECTOR. (trembling, appeasing) Yes, it’s very impressive down here…I’m sorry I…I didn’t know.

DENNY. You ever hear of ‘spontaneous ceiling collapse’?

INSPECTOR. (stuttering) Yeah…yes…yes, the Building Commission…the Building Commission monitors it.

DENNY. Exactly! Very good, very good. So you know it happens all the time. Mostly in brand new homes. Happens more often than people know. The adhesive on the timber is crap, doesn’t take much. (shines flashlight) See that girder? (to PAUL) Eric’s team installed that one, right?

PAUL. That one’s…yeah Eric. Or was that Jim?

DENNY. (to INSPECTOR) Well one of us, anyways. If a house has that risk, imagine what we’re dealing with down here, with, what, a million tons above us?

PAUL. Nah, a billion. Gotta be a billion. The water in the lake, water weighs more than dirt and everything. I don’t know, could it be a trillion?

INSPECTOR. Guys, I should…I should–

DENNY. See those four bolts right there? One, two, three, four.

INSPECTOR. …yes.

DENNY. (places wrench on bolt) One of these loosens a little, just a little, and it’s a chain reaction. Everything’s connected down here. We’re all connected.

INSPECTOR. Ok can you be careful please though, Denny. 

DENNY. One girder shifts a centimeter, and this entire network caves. 

(DENNY turns the bolt a half turn; a metallic squeak is heard.)

INSPECTOR. (frozen in terror) Please. Can you put that down, please. Please Denny. 

DENNY. And you and me, Paul, all of us – we’re entombed down here, for good. No one we know and love will ever ever see us, in any form, ever again. They’ll never find us. 

PAUL. (sinisterly) They won’t even look.

INSPECTOR. (stumbling) Please…guys, I need to leave, I…I have another…appointment, another audit. I need to leave. Put the posters up Denny when you can. Forget the fines ok. Put the posters up. I gotta go. Good bye. Good bye.

PAUL. Fly away little birdie…fly high away, high away…

INSPECTOR. Till next time, love.