Dariush filled the lamp before the first light appeared. He had the lamp on the table in front of him, the small oil reservoir unscrewed and set beside it, and he poured the fuel slowly from the tin with the kind of attention the task required in the dark. The lamp was a brass oil lamp, old and much repaired, with a cylindrical reservoir that held enough fuel for eight hours of continuous burning. Its wick had been trimmed the evening before. He had set it in the trimmed position then, knowing that in the morning he would not want to be adjusting things by feel.
He replaced the reservoir and screwed it back into the body of the lamp with care. The thread on the joint was worn and required a full turn before it seated. He had been meaning to have it replaced for three seasons. He had not replaced it. It still held.
He set the lamp on the table and looked at it for a moment. It was a small lamp — about fifteen centimetres tall with the reservoir screwed in, the chimney adding another five. The brass was old and dark, with the particular patina that came from decades of heat and handling. His father had used this lamp. His grandfather had used it before his father. He was not certain how old it was — older than his own career in the qanat, certainly, and probably older than his father's. The records did not say when it had been acquired or by whom. It was simply the lamp that went underground for the annual inspection.