Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25477067-20160929183244

California. A small town called Merced sits in the middle of nowhere. It is a small town, not very many people. A very hot town. 102 Fahrenheit, most summers. Summers where the farmers in the surrounding land sit in their trucks scanning the horizon all day lest their golden hills in their golden state burn black. No rest for them.



Farther north from the town, 15 miles to the northeast, there is a small mound of dirt. It is unmarked, unnamed, and does not appear on any maps. It is incredibly hard to find, and it would be just any other hill if not for the small iron hatch at the base of the mound. A miners hatch, leading to stuffy tunnels underground. You would think that it would be cooler down in the dirt, but the hatch provides no protection. It is like an oven in the tunnels, so humid that beads of water collect on the walls if you watch, so humid it is hard to draw breath. Down here there's always that smell. Overly sweet, smelling perverse yet satisfying. As if the flesh it emanates from would burst upon touch and the meat inside would be glistening with sugar, pulply and moist.Like a sausage. It draws you but at the same time revolts you, doesn't it? To use this description for the three men lying at the bottom of the pit, side by side, as if they are slabs of rotten meat to be devoured. One of them is in the corner, huddled into a ball. A book is by his side. Only half a page is legible in the wavery beams of sunlight streaming down from the air holes.



Over the years, the manhole has been discovered. A teen looking for somewhere to smoke, a cop following the footsteps of a perk, a biker just out for a ride. However, none have dared go any further than open the manhole. Something about the silence and the heat and the smell triggers their instinctual part of their brain, warning them off, lest some thing in the darkness, the stuff of their nightmares, reaches out of the darkness slowly, just a hand, clutching for them. That would be insane, they reason. Yet they don't test the hole. They slowly close it once again, and leave the four men to their silent repose.



I found the hole. It is one of the worst memories I have ever experienced, yet I don't remember much about it. When I was smaller I always had trouble distinguishing reality from my vivid dreams. For me, I could have gone to school in pink snow boots or gotten buried up to the neck by a bulldozer, I don't recall for sure if they actually happened or not. The manhole was the same way. It just lingers in the back of my mind, causing me to shudder and until recently, wonder if it really happened. Now, though, I know for sure. I am standing on the edge of the manhole now. It wasn't as hard to find as I expected, I recognized certain dead trees and even a rock or two. I can`t believe I still get cell service out here, but for all I know, this could be a hazy dream.



I`m a coward. Now, standing on the edge of this hole, I feel the urge to turn around, to stop what I am going to do, to end this madness. Gasoline as heavy as lead in my other hand, I want to end this, but some part of me wonders if this will actually do the trick.



<span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I remember falling the first time. Into the manhole, I mean. Down, Down, Down, with this sour taste in my mouth from my fear. When I hit bottom I remember the jarring sensation, the pain behind my eyes, and the ache of clenched jaws. I remember eyes in the dark, looking at me, and I remember calling out to them, only to have them blink slowly, and move not an inch. Eyes in the darkness…

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I don’t remember much after that but a car driving me home, then blackness. The only reason I even remember any of this at all is because this hole is refreshing my memories, now that I stand by it. Did I go back a second time? I think I did, but I’m not sure if that was a dream or not. I know I never dared to come back and search till now, till they started calling to me.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Three month ago, I was happy. The manhole was a bad dream. Job, Car, House, the real american dream. Then I saw a dead body on my bed. Only for a second, but I’m sure it was smiling in its repose. Two weeks later, one in the backseat of my car, driving home from work. A week later, one showed up in my bathtub. The period of time before they disappeared got longer and longer, and they were definitely smiling at me. Smiling with closed eyes. Two days ago, the whispers started, telling me they missed me, wanted me to come back. No drugs dulled the voices, and no matter how many I took, I couldn’t bring myself to end it all. They would be waiting for me there already. My job was gone within a week of the first sighting, my car after the second. The second straight day of voices, I cracked. I couldn’t take it anymore. What if they started opening their eyes? I couldn’t stand that, so I came back.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">How many times have I visited this damn hole? How long before they missed me? Was it just that once, or more,many more? Hazy memories float lazily by, a book, a tunnel, nothing substantial. Whatever happened in that hole the first time, or the next, or the next, I was marked from the beginning. I’ve been a moth to a flame, never able to leave.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Maybe, for all I know, I’ve written this a hundred times, maybe the cycle repeats over and over.The only thing I can do now, is douse the hole, strike a match, and go down to meet them. <ac_metadata title="California"> </ac_metadata>