On the bus
From work at
The library to
The specialist I
Close my eyes and am
Awakened by a pop,
Which is either something impossible
Or the very possible sound of
Humans indicating
They want off,
That the bus should sidle up and
Wind down and
Make its
Deposits.
I walk.
Posture good. No bag,
So hands in my pockets but
There’s a spot growing over my eyes.
I can’t see it move or jump
Like it should when I
Shut one eye with a palm over
All those muscles
Designed by Millenia
For that intricate purpose.
It just hovers there
Saying “I do not depend upon you
For my reality.”
At first I don’t get it.
I duck into a
Cold Stone Creamery
And scrub at my face
In an every-sex bathroom
That belongs in someone’s home,
Cabinet stocked.
With cleaners and sponges, I
Tweak ointments and tinctures in
To make it shrink, or fall away, or
At least play nice and
Obey the laws of physics
As I have known them.
I get moving again
Because appointments are things,
Deep and substantial as
Country and creed.
I can no longer look away,
Though.
It’s a hole in you, a hole in us,
A hole in everything.
First a peephole and
Now a manhole and
I think it will invert us,
Go topsy-turvy and
Make home-pressed noodles in the
Steaming bowl of
Everything that is out here,
That is not it,
That doesn’t fit in our
Dewey Decimal System.
But it holds. Sits there.
And I realize it is only
The size of a dinner plate,
Hovering at a distance I should
Be able to pace at
A 3, 2, 1 countdown.
(One, two, three)
But of course the steps don’t
Do the trick. They
Make me awkward with
The rest of the room,
All elbows and—yes—
There are other people in the
Room who do not like elbows.
At least jabbing their
Armpits and ribcages.
They are in a line and
They wonder what’s
Wrong with me and
Tell me so and
A kid with an
Angry set of braces
From some cruel 80s movie
Actually kicks me a little,
Timid but firm.
I stagger back, and my head tilts,
And I am looking up at the television
Mounted by the door in the
Waiting room and
I realize that while the
Hole in the world is
Content to go where the
Turn of my head dictates,
It has an older, more
Dedicated relationship
With terra firma,
With the gravitational pull or the
Distance that humans carry their brains
From the center of this particular earth,
And it will not bob at my whim
Or bow to my wishes.
I feel two panics
In rapid succession.
One that I will never know
What is there inside the haze
Where I see motion now
Where a figure moves and
Light shifts as if it
Were filtering across a
Molten plain.
And the other that
I will never be able to look away,
Never find my way around,
Never be alone with
The population of this world
Again, elbows, shin-kicking
And all.
But then I right myself and stand,
Arm’s reach from the door and
Forgetting why I’m here.
Not what my name is, at least,
But forgetting
That the sound I hear repeated
Again and again
By a woman in visibly bisected glasses—
Possibly from the same movie
The girl who hates elbows
Is from—
Is in fact my name
Said again and again
For attention, for closure, for
Identification.
But I can’t turn to see her again.
It’s because I have been
Watching the spot
On the door where the
Hole in the world has dived
And disappeared….
I feel like a sinner redeemed,
Like that world is no longer
Simmering in a bowl before me.
No longer waiting for
Some figure that moves
(Light shifting across a
Molten plain)
Forward for the kill.
Forward to take the great
Bowl of our world
In its arms
For the piece de resistance,
For the devouring.
The Great Pour
From everything
To the unknowable bowels
Of the beast beyond the world.
Looking at the closed door only,
I feel like a sinner redeemed, but
Also like a sinner who has
Lost his chance to sin.
I gasp for breath,
Can barely make sense of the air—
To remember what to do with it—
And I lunge.
The bisected horn rims are
At my side now and
I hear the tone of concern,
Gentle human touch at my elbow.
“Mr. Something,” she says,
Dr. Someone will see you now,”
But I lash out, make contact,
Am out the door and into the hall and
Not looking.
Too afraid to know whether
It is with me or
Against me, I
Keep my eyes closed and
My limbs in motion. I
Try to see the murky manhole of
The hole in the world
In the reddish, bleeding blackness
That is insides-of-eyelids,
Living veins of remembered light, and
I panic one more time
As I trip across an intersection,
Squinting—
Is it with me
Or against me?
The intersection is not busy
But it is not so not-busy that
The people of the bowl of
Home-pressed noodles
Fail to shout with their
Car horns and
Apologize with
The squeals of their
Tires.
But I do not have eyes for them.
In a parklet with child’s drawings I
Open my eyes again and
Find I am not alone—
Not abandoned.
And that there ‘round the
Hole in the world is the
Rim of the world and that
If I could just hoist myself up
I could get there. Go through.
Be the first wide noodle to
Be slurped up and
Out of the Dewey Decimal.
Determined,
I hoist myself up
And pour myself in.
DOUGLAS GWILYM is an author and editor who has also been known to compose a weird-fiction rock opera or two. He edited four years of the themed annual Triangulation (now in its 17th iteration) and is an active member of the Horror Writers Association. He has served on staff at Alpha Young Writers speculative fiction workshop and is the Gwilym in Gwilym & Oreto’s Good Dark Fun. Check out his stories at Tales from the Moonlit Path, Dark Fire, and Danse Macabre's DM du Jour. See him read classic weird fiction on YouTube and find more stories at douglasgwilym.com.