The Dead Letter Office receives a series of emails from a college student with recurring nightmares. Conway takes a trip to investigate a kitschy painting.

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(CWs: trypophobia, alcohol, finger damage, depictions of depression)

 

TRANSCRIPT:

CONWAY: This is Conway, receiving clerk for the Dead Letter Office of ***** Ohio, processing the national dead mail backlog. The following audio recording will serve as an internal memo strictly for archival purposes and should be considered confidential. Need I remind anyone: public release of this or any confidential material from the DLO is extremely felonious. Some names and places have been censored for the protection of the public. 

Dead letter 13905. A series of emails were sent to the Environmental Protection Agency of Ohio over the course of many months in 2015. There was some concern among the higher-ups at the agency that these emails may be more pertinent to our work at the DLO rather than the EPA. They were intercepted and forwarded to us, and have been subsequently opened and read. The emails read as follows:

KARA, NARRATOR: Dear Rick,

I’m a senior at um **** ***** State University. I’ve been dreaming about holes--dark caves, coves along the shore, deep black as far in as I can see. This may not seem relevant at first, but I promise it'll come up, keep reading. I dream about sinkholes opening in a busy city street; gaps in clusters of coral growing from a sunken boat; a bloody bullet-wound in my leg; a honeycomb. This isn’t the first time I’ve dreamt about holes. There’s something I find revolting and unsettling about their emptiness. Maybe it’s ingrained in our lizard brains that holes are not good. Maybe that’s why aliens in our movies and comics always have those giant, endlessly black eyes.

I dream more dreams about holes. I dream about trying to fill an infinite pool with a small garden hose. I dream about empty pomegranates. Others are deeply upsetting: confused imagery, lotus pod faces, choking revulsion, claustrophobia.

I haven’t been sleeping well, and I can’t seem to focus on my schoolwork at all. My grades are starting to slip and I’m not sure how to proceed. I haven’t told anyone about the dreams yet. Talking about dreams to other people is pointless anyway; either they get it and nod along with you or they don’t get it at all and just nod along out of courtesy. It’s like having to explain why a joke is funny, it kills the whole prospect.

After days of restless nights dreaming about holes, it’s hard to not notice them just...everywhere. Pupils are just holes in your eyes. Don’t look at close-up pictures of eyes. Empty spaces on bookshelves, open windows. Pores on peoples’ faces yawn wide. Cavities burrow into teeth, worms dig through soil.

Anyway, I was doing some much-needed vacuuming on a Sunday morning and had to move the rug in the middle of my room to sweep under it. I pulled at the fabric, then paused. Two of the wooden planks underneath seemed a little farther apart than they should be. I tried to remember what the floor looked like last time I vacuumed. It had been a while, but I don't think they were that far apart. After all of these dreams about empty spaces, I figured I was just imagining things. I put the rug back over the boards and continued cleaning.

Over the next few weeks or so, I didn’t really think about the space under the rug. I carried on with my dull work and repetitive life for a few weeks. That is, until a tube of chapstick fell off my coffee table and rolled strangely toward the center of the rug. Where it stopped, the slight weight of the tube made the rug sink. I hesitantly moved the table and reached out for the edge of the rug. The gap between the floorboards was definitely bigger this time. I started looking for answers online. Wood warping, leaky pipes, sinkholes, fracking quakes, ball lightning coming through electrical sockets; all manner of strange natural incidents can occur in your house, but none of this seemed to quite fit the symptoms.

Anyway, now that the wordy preamble is out of the way, this is why I’m contacting you. I figure ODNR or the Ohio EPA should know something about this. It’s probably fine right? I think it’s just some kind of geological event or seismic oddity. My address and phone number are enclosed in case you think this sounds serious.

Best,

Kara

KARA: Hello again Rick,

Thanks for getting back to me. I don’t hear any water, but it has grown. In fact, one morning I stumbled blearily downstairs and nearly fainted. The hole had widened, and seemingly swallowed my area rug and coffee table. The edges were perfectly smooth, as if something terribly sharp cut through the floorboards and into the earth. I froze in a panic on the stairs and spent what felt like most of the morning paralyzed, numb, staring at the hole from the dark steps. Where did it come from? Where did it lead? Should I call 911?

Eventually I got brave enough to leave the stairs and go near it. I strained to see in from a few feet away, but it was no use. I smelled for rotten eggs like you suggested, but I don’t think there’s any gas leaks. I leaned in and listened. Nothing. As I inched closer, the urge to stick my hand in was strong, but my survival instincts proved stronger.

I haven’t told anyone else about this hole, either. Who would I call? My dad? The cops? What would I say? Now that I think about it, maybe I can take care of it myself. I’ve fixed a lock  and caulked a shower before, so maybe it won’t be too hard to replace some floorboards. Or maybe, if it’s some freak geological occurrence, it’ll just go away on its own, just as suddenly as it came. I’ll just be extra careful not to drop anything for the time being, and I’ll cover it up if anyone comes over. I’ll plan around it. No big. Sorry to bother you.

Thanks anyway,

Kara

KARA: At first it was a pain. I was stunned anew every morning that I came down from the bedroom to see chasm in the floor before me. My heart raced as I tip-toed around it, trying not to look down. Soon I’d forget about it for a few minutes when I was busy. I wouldn’t notice it while I was watching entire seasons of show at once, or staring at the dishes that somehow keep piling up. 

But it always nagged at me, gnawing at some part of my brain, conscious or otherwise. I’d go out with friends, and they’d notice me staring into space. They’d ask what’s wrong. Nothing, I’d say. And in a sense, it was true. Holes are just an absence, a lack. When I’d lay on the couch for days without moving, it was an absence, a lacking. It was nothing. I stopped going out with friends. I’d make and break little promises to myself that I would check my email and get back to you, that I’d talk to someone about it if it wasn’t gone tomorrow. Then next week. Then if it was still around next year.

Eventually I got accustomed to its size, its edges, to the point where I could just side-step it by muscle memory. Avoiding it became an unconscious routine like anything else. I didn’t feel worried about it, and in fact didn’t feel much at all anymore. If I drank and slept enough, it was nothing.

I trudged through all this and by some miracle graduated. I got a new job and moved out of town. Yeah, I just left the hole there for the landlord to deal with. It’s not like I was getting my deposit back anyway. The presence of the new city gave me a rush. There were new places to explore, new food to try. I was getting more rest, had more fulfilling work, better hobbies. Better relationships. My new partner moved in.

But new things only stay new for so long, and bodies refuse to stay buried, so to speak. Just a small crack under the bed. Just a sliver at first. Probably shoddy flooring. I covered it with a storage tub and didn’t tell my partner. Why should they get roped into worrying about a tiny crack in the wood? It's ridiculous. My partner later found it, of course, and wanted to call the landlord. I convinced them not to. Said I’d seen something like that before, and that it's fine if we just ignore it.

The crack got bigger. Its presence festered. My partner was shaken from their sleep one morning when the bedframe slipped and fell halfway into the hole. They insisted that we call someone, but I fought back again. My partner got irritated, told me off. Said they were tired of the waiting, the excuses, the growing gulf between us. Then they went quiet, and confided that they had heard something scratching and whispering in the hole when I wasn’t home. They thought it was their imagination running wild, paranoia, or just loneliness. But not anymore. They grabbed a flashlight out of the closet and tentatively peered over the edge of the silent void. They didn’t say a word the rest of the n