the abyss

A massive yawning chasm opened up in town square last week. No one seems to know where it came from or why it's there, and there doesn't seem to be a bottom. It just goes on forever. It's perfectly round, and the police have roped it off with police tape, but nobody stops you from going up and looking down. Scientists keep saying it's impossible, and I guess they know more about that than I do.

My sister was in town today, so I took her down to the abyss and we sat at the edge and had a picnic. We just threw the garbage into the gaping emptiness. We didn't talk about the fact that our feet were dangling into an impossibility. That would be awkward.

Every night since it opened I've gone out and paced around its circumference. I never measure it or counted steps, but it takes about an hour to go all the way around and I can do it with my eyes closed now. It's so dark and quiet and smooth. Sometimes I'll shout into it and the echoes seem to last forever. And then they fall quiet and I'm all alone again.

It feels more familiar than anything I've ever known. I know its shape, its infinite depth. Everything about my hometown, my lover, seems like I barely scratched the surface before. Now I understand them in relation to the abyss, and it seems so much clearer.