It’s a Real Town

Posted on January 5, 2006 by Jenna

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The hole is out in the middle of the desert.

It’s not a hole in the ground, really. It’s more of a chasm in the nature of things. It’s a place where the underlying mathematics of the world break down, defaulting to prehuman axioms.

There’s a man standing above the hole. He’s in shadow. He’s got a long coat and a cigarette, and in between pulls he holds it out and burning sparks drift down in the wind above the hole.

And there are great horrible eyes that look up unblinkingly at him, only to be burned.

And there are fins that splash back beneath the surface of the Not as the sparks touch them.

And there are places where a single ash in the wind lands and gives birth to a world, seethes into brilliant life, planets, suns, spinning galaxies, and ships; and then the whole curls in on itself as it cools and dies and fades into the Not.

And amidst the seething horror of it a hand flails, a hand attached to a coatsleeved arm, and the voice of it cries, “For the love of God, let me out!”

And sparks flutter down and lightly burn the hand.

“I’m not a prehuman horror! I’m from Kenmore!”

It’s a real town, you know.

People live there.

But the man up at the top doesn’t react. He just takes another pull and waits. Now and again, when a tendril of the darkness rises, he steps on it.

“For the love of God!”

Then the man’s assistants, a man and a woman, arrive with the patch, and they place it over the hole, and all is still.

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