Rain flitted down on Shawn's face as his mind emerged from the fog that clearly signaled that he was returning from the Circus and back into the world. His hand clutched the rabbit's foot, eyes still blind with waking. He could hear the rain beads braking on the rock around him, bouncing from every hard surface.

He felt the cool earth beneath him. He was in the mud.

'That's God's Dwelling! It's Not For Playing!' A voice was yelling from far away.

"Is he awake?" Bobby's voice chimed in, much closer.

"I think so. I don't know. I'm not sure." Tiffany's voice. And soon after, the smell of some kind of candy.

"Oh Brother." Bobby's voice was dismayed. "We have to get Shawn up and out of this hole or Dad's going to be mad. He's already yelling."

"Your Dad is kind of weird." Tiffany said. This created a pause in the conversation, the sound of her crunching down on whatever candy that she was chewing on. "Just sayin'."

"No he's not." Bobby objected.

"Yeah he is. He's all weird and praying. But not like church praying. I saw him praying outside. I saw him talking to himself."

"I know." Bobby confessed, seeming to agree with the idea that Tiffany had raised, or at least the facts of what she said, if not the conclusion. "Shawn and I talked about that. But, you know, I umm...think we might have been wrong. Oh brother, or maybe it was just me that was wrong. I didn't...we didn't know that Dad lost his job. And that's why he's been so upset. We thought...or maybe I thought, that he was going crazy or something. That that was the reason why he was acting all weird. And that was the reason why he was digging this hole."

"But it turns out that Dad said that there was a pipe problem or something with the tank or something. I don't know what it is, but like, every yard has a big tank that they use. And ours is broken, so instead of paying for it, Dad wants to fix it."

"But yeah, Dad losing his job is the reason why my Mom started drinking I think too."

"A poop tank."

"What?"

"It's called a poop tank. When you flush the toilet, the poop goes into a tank in the yard underground."

"That's not what it's called." Bobby disagreed. It sounded like he disagreed with the term, but not the idea of how it worked.

The first thing Shawn did was hide his rabbit's foot once more, before getting Bobby's attention, before asking if Ralph was okay. He struggled to his feet, and looked around. "Hello?" The smell of candy was...well, after all he'd been through, it made him feel more sick than anything. But at least he was okay, and Bobby too!

"Hey he's awake. Oh brother Shawn, you better get up. Dad's really mad that you've been playing down here. He says its dangerous and that there's some kind of gas line that he's been digging up."