Marker was making a tiny little castle out of dirt.
Dirt has a lot more useful properties than one may realize. The biggest nerds in all of history (that being Golf Ball and her only friend) can attest to that; they'll rant about how the proper term for what everyone refers to as dirt is actually 'soil', that dirt can be used to refer to any number of substances that are usually considered as dirt-y (get it?), and all sorts of other pedantic nonsense that nobody outside of incredibly massive losers will care about. GB will also complain about that one time some soil *somehow* managed to get into her cake during that one contest a long while ago, and how that made her look like a fool by making everyone completely overlook her unparalleled baking skills. But if one manages to endure all that discourse (and was lucky enough to manage to steer the conversation back in the right direction), she and TB will definitely agree that *soil* is a very integral part of the world. It's the stuff they stand on, the stuff things grow on, the stuff that everything is built on in general. Everything everyone considers to be important is resting right on top of the surface, and you'll never guess what it's made out of. A world without soil is a world without life. Without soul. Without meaning. Without dirt, the Earth would be nothing.
It goes without saying that Marker likes dirt for all sorts of reasons, not just because of those lame science-y explanations. Back when Stapy was around, his absolute favorite game to play was Toss the Dirt; they could go for hours on end, seeing who can toss the most dirt and make the deepest hole. It's all good fun. Very few people fully understand the nuance and significance of the activity, however. Plenty of them just think that all the meaning of the game is contained in those three words: you Toss the Dirt. It's as simple as that. But rarely is the true question ever asked: what does it *really* mean to toss the dirt? Anyone that's actually bothered to try often has the same old experience: they grab an entire handful of it (shovels are cheating), then they'd throw it over them or something, then they'd do this a few more times before they become too disgusted by it and give up on the whole affair. But that's just half of the story. Or a third. Or a quarter. All this fraction stuff was too much for the writing utensil's brain to handle. Or for anyone to handle. Point is, that's not the whole story. Not by a longshot.
To start off, there's that all-important first step to any game of Toss the Dirt: you get down on your knees (if you have legs, anyway) so that you're as close to the dirt as possible. Really sink your legs into it. You look at it, and you say hello; it's very important to establish good communication with it, as it's the thing where all things come from. It establishes your intent: you come in peace, you're a good friend, and you're here to play a simple game of Toss the Dirt. If you don't do that, you're more likely to be looked at with disdain by the dirt; you could be in the middle of a good game, when all of a sudden the walls start caving in and you become completely enveloped by it. No good. Alleged level heads would talk all sorts of nonsense about backwards superstition and all that, but any expert in dirt-tossing will tell you that this is an integral, vital step in the process. You are not to question it, or it will end up destroying it; that's what happened to anyone that dared to ask Four about anything ever, after all.
Then there's the most visual, most striking part of the whole thing; some say that that *this* is actually the most important part, but really, it's just a rather close second. You put your hands down, you *really* get it in there, get a nice handful, and then (pay *very* close attention) you toss... the dirt. You toss the dirt. You toss the dirt. That's so important that it's mentioned thrice. Most say that it's simple enough, that it's a rather trivial part of the exercise; after all, it's the name of the whole game. But to overlook it is to meet certain doom. You look at Marker, you look at Stapy, you look at true experts of the craft, and you see that they move *massive* amounts of soil with each swift movement of the arms. That takes months, years, *decades* of gradually refining and improving your skills: figuring out the optimal throwing speed, taking into account the current depth of the pit you've dug; the angle, making sure that it lands back on the surface instead of just falling back down immediately; the rhythm, maximizing the amount you excavate at a time while minimize the strength exerted, and so on and so forth. So many intricate factors work and weave together in order to turn this simply childish game into a true work of art, something that looks so simple and yet takes an eternity to master.
