I am so happy you are here, says Claire, her headphones the size of a Twitch streamer, looking nothing like you might expect from a cataphile. We cannot return the sentiment because Claire cannot see us. She fires up her PowerPoint to lead us into the underworld. Nothing sloppy about it. A POV video of a long elevator descent, accompanied by the sound of water dripping in a cave, reverb tuned up to last for weeks. I did not hear any water last time I visited. I only heard human voices, other tourists, other guides, all smelling like dust and wasted sunscreen. 

Through a poll, she asks us if we know how many skulls are stacked inside the tombs. I know it is between six and seven million, but Claire cannot tell I am among the three green numbers who get it right. At 2PM my time, she sucks in a breath in the middle of explaining the word carrières to respect the cacophony seeping through her window. Clapping hands, cymbal crashes of pots, soaring whistles.

She resumes with a story of a runner she found down there once, AirPods and all, doing laps as if it was his local park. My ankles and my brain do not let me walk much these days. I imagine how his sneakers felt, caressing the moldy stone. I send Claire two emojis: one sweating, and another laughing with tears. I can’t see you, so I like that, she says.

I want to ask her about a poem that I spotted engraved on a tunnel wall last time I was really there, one that says something about wrangling lightning out of thunder’s hands, but when she opens the Q&A function there are too many people asking was it plague plague plague that chased them all down there, so I daydream instead how it might feel to shake Claire’s black-nailed hand after tipping her. She says we are the reason she is not collecting dust with the rest of them. She waves at us. I catch the corner of her thumb, painted green. I book another one as soon as the session closes. Next time, I will get everything right.