[Recording begin.]

[Distant echoes. Sound of water. Tape hiss. Footsteps.]

HASHEMI: Come help me with this?

DELCO: Sure. (Footsteps.) Which part is it?

HASHEMI: I don’t know what you mean.

DELCO: Of the history. Which part?

HASHEMI (sound of paper rustling. Tools clatter onto stone): It’s not…it isn’t organized like that. Chronologically, I mean. It’s harder for me to connect things together like that.

DELCO: What do you mean?

HASHEMI: Sometimes an event affects something else seven hundred years later. Sometimes it affects something the next day. Sometimes the same events happen over and over on a time span of merely years. Sometimes eons. If I lay it all out flat, the…layers get lost. Haha. It’s pretty ironic, right?

DELCO: Hah. Sure, yeah.

HASHEMI: Here. Hold these. It’s the pattern that’s hard.

DELCO: Right. The assemblage.

HASHEMI: What did you just say?

DELCO: The assemblage? Like, a collection -

HASHEMI: No. Why did you - oh, hell. Anchor. Now.

DELCO: What? Why? We’re - (Tape recorder skips. Audio warps.) Shit. Shit, yeah, I got it. Fuck, Mir, your tools -

HASHEMI: I’ll get them. Don’t move. Stay there.

DELCO: Mir, don’t - do not leave me right now. Don’t be fucking stupid.

HASHEMI: It’s fine. I’m right here. It’s fine. Take my hand, Jack. Come on. When we surface -

DELCO: Don’t lie to me, Mir!

HASHEMI: I’m anchored! Jack, look, I’m anchored! We’ll be fine, come on, stay calm. You have to stay calm.

DELCO: I’m trying. I’m trying.

HASHEMI: Ok, talk to me. Just talk to me. Alright? Don’t let go. Tell me something true.

DELCO: What do you mean?

HASHEMI: Anything. It can be anything. It just has to be true to you. Look, the recorder is still going and everything. Ok? Talk to me.

DELCO: There’s this poem. There’s a poem. I memorized it with Thea…Fuck, I’m trying to remember. I’m losing it.

HASHEMI: Just the parts you remember.

DELCO: We sang it. We put it to music to help me remember it. It was -

[A ringing noise, rising in pitch. All other audio is drowned out. Tape hiss. Click.]