The Quarry
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In the middle of the day everything in the quarry is lit from above by the sun. The boulders, the tiny trees, the vine growing up the cliff-face. All still and clear, static and visible. Nothing moves in the quarry.
Maybe a grasshopper flickers. Maybe a bird flies over, calling.
As the sun gets lower a shadow starts to go across it, beginning at one wall and spreading slowly across to the other. It climbs, filling up the quarry from below in much the way that water would. It is blue and cool, this shadow, and nothing is hidden by it yet. Only softened.
Then the sun goes down and the shadow in the quarry changes. It gets darker and objects are slowly lost in it, their outlines erased and consumed. The shadow thickens. Then it isn’t shadow any more. It’s darkness and the darkness in the hole is no different to the darkness above it but you can’t see down into the quarry. It was dug a long time ago and it goes down deep into the ground. There might be water in the quarry, or movement, or nothing. There might be no bottom to it.