A Hole is Just a Vacant Dot

by Sarp Sozdinler

The day the sinkhole appeared in our front yard, the objects in our home vanished one after the other: Mom’s candy-colored spatulas, Dad’s citrusy Old Spice. Clementines rotting in the wicker basket. We noticed the incident only after the fact, only when my younger brother woke up one morning and found out that two of his toes were missing.

 

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Afterward, there was just a big gaping hole. Standing right outside of our porch. Staring and smiling. With its girth and depth, it resembled a womb. In the bottom of the hole stood a seed of some strange species. The seed looked like the beginning of something but also, weirdly, signified an end. We made our biggest mistake by mistiming a pitch one day and accidentally kicking our ball into the hole. We made our second mistake by jumping into the hole and trying to salvage the ball back.

 

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Everything that went missing from our house soon reappeared in the hole: my brother’s gangrenous toes, Mom’s varicolored charm bracelets. Dad’s car keys. The discovery of items brought an end to our discussions, all that he-said-she-said. It was Mama Nature after all, the divine intervenor. It even said so in the police report.

 

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Soon after, we recovered some of our neighbors’ stuff from the hole, too: the Donovans’ stillborn son’s baby-blue crib; all the permits the mayor granted the oil people under false pretenses. Some dirty lingerie.

 

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We organized excursions into the hole. We tried to ditch all our prejudices about things we could not easily identify. We dug into the hole twenty-four-seven. We tried to give it a rest. We tried to fall asleep at the bottom of the hole. Whatever we did, we couldn’t figure out where the hole came from. Or why it wouldn’t go away. Why it would just keep on vacuuming the moonlight and lure us out into the sun.

 

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This is how civilizations began, Michael from two houses down said one day when we were playing baseball. He spent half his time trying to burn down entire ant colonies in our neighborhood, so it was rich coming from him.

 

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The neighbors helped us out in excavating our belongings from the hole. Everything was restored to its right place in the end, but not one item seemed the same after the comeback. Something still felt amiss. There was a trace of weariness to all of us, but also to our belongings, that battered air synonymous with most grownups.

 

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Moon came and went. It was always the same rotation of events: the crescent moon following a full moon, and vice versa, but never the middle, like our moods. We couldn’t tell whether any of it had to do with the hole.

 

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One night, during a full moon, I slipped out of the upstairs window. I slid down the sinkhole. I crossed one leg over the other at the bottom, sitting just by the seed. The seed had long blossomed into a state of admiration, and I petted its petals. I hummed a lullaby for the roots. I raked the earth around the seed with my hands and ate palmfuls of soil. When I was done, my teeth were bitter with all the grit and grind. I glanced up: there was just the moon and a couple of lazy stars. The stars looked like some worker bees buzzing in adoration for their queen.

 

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The morning after, the sinkhole disappeared as abruptly as it arrived. Just like that.

 

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We didn’t know what happened. No one saw anything, not really. People said good riddance. People said that the hole was being too much, that it had brought everyone’s bullshit to light. That the divorce rates had skyrocketed since it appeared. That everyone was already feeling depressed over it. That someone must have taken initiative after all and brought an end to it all.

 

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After the incident, everything else remained as they were: the houses, the town, the sun. Mom’s vases of sunflowers by the patio door. Dad’s collection of vintage baseball bats. All those hip-hop posters adorning the walls of my brother’s room. All that stray trash.

 

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Then followed a big fat chunk of nothing. Mountains were mountains, and trees were trees again. Every night, I swiped another crappy item off our household and chucked it off the rooftop. I would always find them where they fell on the next day. There was not a hole to swallow them whole anymore.

 

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Moon, too, returned to its usually boring state. It ebbed and flowed. Ebbed and flowed.

 

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The sinkhole was a recurring topic of discussion during breakfast. It sounded like nostalgia by lunch, tasted like melancholy by dinnertime. It became an even more talked-about subject after it was gone, like most anything good in life.

 

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Whatever I tried, I couldn’t remember what my life had been like before the sinkhole. The world was now a bowl again, with all the wrong ingredients in it. I couldn’t tell whether the hole’s absence or presence made my life appear duller.

 

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We went on playing baseball near where the sinkhole had once been. One day, someone pitched the ball too far ahead, and when I ran off to catch it I saw the tip of what I figured was the seed from before sprouting out of where the ball dropped. Staring at it, I could feel the pull of something underneath.

 

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I grew old, and all my friends died before me. No one asked about the hole ever again. Adults never once asked how we were doing. Not really.

 

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Our house came crumbling down in a hurricane. All the tears and blood, gone with the wind.

 

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The day before I died, the sinkhole reappeared. I couldn’t tell whether that was the same hole as before. It didn’t matter, not at the time. I just welcomed it back, and it bade me farewell. I wished to be reborn inside the hole, budding and flowering like a seed.