The mole reached his porch by late afternoon. The door was neatly built into the hollow of an old tree, with double steps fitted into the thick roots, upon which new fallen leaves lay in all shades of green.

He swept them away with his foot and turned the key. The entrance hall was round and wide, rising twenty feet to a second hollow. Warm sunlight shone through this window, dusky rays of soft gold. For a moment he saw her there, gliding in, downy wings of purest white.

He sighed and turned to a wide stairwell, spiraling into the earth. Down he stepped, down and round, lighting lamps with a taper as he went. Flame by flame the underground mansion slowly emerged from the darkness, a work no mole before had ever dreamed of, let alone built.

First, a vast open space, miles of emptiness all around, neither wall nor root breaking the breathtaking expanse: the sky underground. Then the peaks of stone mountains, gray and black rock catching gold lamplight. Then the roof of a strange and beautiful wood, then the wood itself, hundreds of trees sculpted out of earth, down to the last detail of individual leaves. Then a lake, spanned by a bridge, into which

Breathless, he stood mid-bridge, palms flat on the cool stone, gazing at his reflection in the dark water. His image, occasionally obscured by a passing fish, stared back. Neither approved of the other; both shook their heads.

"Were there fish before?" he asked his reflection, who shrugged. "Welcome all the same. Bring your friends. Raise your families. No fish eaters here."

And there, on the stone table, lay a message written on new parchment: "Gone in search of you, come what may."

He came to a small clearing set with table and twin chairs. Upon the table, parchment scrolls lay partly unfurled, revealing maps and diagrams and plans. He sat, shoulders hunched, hands tapping at the scrolls. "To think I once kept in a den with room enough only to turn around; dreamt of nothing higher than a soft root or branch of berry; lived only to eat, sleep and forage, each day an echo of the day before. And I was happy."

"Coward!" they accused one another. "Will you shrink down to your old size? Become a sleeper in a dank den? Forget that there are oceans in the world? Shrug in the very eyes of love?"

an underground river sang. Then a score of tunnels, each scarcely begun but wonderfully planned, aimed at all points of the compass. Above four of the archways words of destination were cut: Canyon, Mountain, Vale, Ocean.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Welcome Bring, Heart Wood, Vale Ocean, lighting lamps, round lighting lamps, round lighting, heart wood,
Approximate Word count = 1118
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)