Man Digs to China

Man Digs to China
June 2, 2008

BOSTON, MA—Today the old adage, "Sometimes the only way to get out of a hole is to dig yourself out" rings true to at least one Massachusetts native.

At approximately 4:30 PM, Sunday, June 1, Gary Newsome, a serial murderer and life-long resident of Brockton, officially completed his dig to China.

"I never thought it was possible," Newsome explained enthusiastically. "I mean, you always heard those stories when you were a kid about how if you keep digging, eventually you'll get to China. But this? This is just surreal."

Nearly 16 days ago, Newsome began his now legendary descent in his backyard.

"I was burying some stuff that I had to get rid of. Some latex gloves, a hatchet, some lime, you know the stuff I generally use for my murdering. Anyway, obviously I didn't want anyone to find all that, so I figured I'd bury them deeper than usual." That's when things got interesting.

As the minutes became hours and hours became days, Newsome fought through the fatigue and kept right on digging. He would give himself incremental challenges. For example, he'd see how many feet he could dig one day and try to break that record the next.

"It kinda became an obsession," Newsome confesses. "You know, digging that hole was a lot like serial murdering. You get fixated on something and you just have to follow it through no matter what. You just keep doing it and doing it and you can't stop."

And he didn't stop. Not until he had been boring through earth, bedrock and molten core for over two weeks. Not until, by a mind-numbing twist of equilibrium, he had somehow found himself digging up instead of down. Not until, with one violent hack above his head, he punched through the windswept surface of Tiananmen Square.

"My first thought was, 'Where the heck am I?' My second thought was, 'Wow, these little guys are gunna be so easy to murder.'"

Is that enough reason to prompt Newsome to set up permanent residence across the globe?

"Nah," Newsome dismisses. "Now that I finished the hole, I need a new task. Maybe I'll try to jump so high I touch the sky. Or murder an albino king or something. There can't be many of those, right?"

But even if he never reaches those lofty goals, Gary Newsome's name has secured a place on the lips of schoolyard children across the continent. He dug so far down, he got to China.