docbungle

Nine days ago I found a hole in my head.

I was taking a shower, washing my hair, and there it was. In the back, where most men my age begin to grow a bald spot. About an inch in diameter.

When I put my finger in, I couldn’t feel the bottom.

I couldn’t feel anything.

I stood motionless in the shower for a long time.

The edges were smooth, not like a sore or a scar. Not like something that had been ripped out. Not like a puncture.

I didn’t go to work that day.

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to wake up. I sat and I tried and I played with my hole. By the time I went to bed that night I knew I’d been awake all along.

It was real.

The next day I wore a hat to work. Hats are not permitted. When they made me take it off I stood with my back to the wall. For the entire day I stood with my back to the wall. Customers approached and asked various questions, which I answered in great detail - using various specific hand gestures - but I did not move from the wall.


***


When I woke the next morning there was a hole in my pillow. It was about the same size as the hole in my head. I picked up the pillow and saw the hole in the mattress. It was a perfect hole. Not like something that had been ripped out. Not like a puncture.

Under the bed, the hole in the floor was the same size. I crawled under and peered into it. In the apartment below me, an elderly woman lay sprawled motionless across a recliner. A coffee mug hung loosely from one hand, all the coffee having spilled onto the floor. Her hair was gray and bushy and erratic. In the center of her forehead, a little off to the left, there was a perfect hole.

I didn’t go to work that day.

I stood in front of the mirror and looked at myself. I tried to turn my head so I could see the hole. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see the back of my head, but I tried for a very long time.

I put my finger in it again and when I pulled it out this time there was nothing there.

My finger was gone.

There was no indication of a cut or a rip. It simply wasn’t there anymore, and appeared as if it never had been.

I began to feel afraid.


***


I slept on my side that night.

Several times throughout the night I awoke with a jolt. My dreams were not the good kind. By morning, the bed sheets were saturated with my sweat. I looked at my finger and it was still not there.

Some parts of my apartment were missing. I could see through the holes in my kitchen wall into the hallway and the apartment beyond. My coffeepot was halfway gone. The refrigerator was missing most of the freezer. Half-packages of chicken and beef sat thawing in the open air next to the melted ice cube trays.

In the back of my head, I began to feel a dull pain. I felt tentatively around the edges of the hole and realized it had nearly doubled in diameter.


***


The next morning my furniture was different. Not the furniture itself, but rather it’s placement.

Everything had moved closer to my bed. The recliner’s movement had left gouges in the hardwood floor. The coffee table sat at the foot of the bed, having thrown off the telephone - which was still connected to the wall and lay in a clutter on the floor.


***


By the next morning my head was a constant throb. The pain was unbearable. I took 7 aspirin and later I took 7 more. The pain never eased. I cried for an unknown period of time. The phone rang and rang until I ripped it from the wall and smashed it under my feet. I began to think I could hear a sucking sound from somewhere behind me.


***


The next few days I don’t remember. There is not even a blur, just an open piece of time, a blank piece of paper.

At some point I acquired another phone, because well, there it is.

Several pieces of furniture are no longer around. My coffee table has disappeared and most of the padding appears to have been sucked from the recliner.

The hole in the back of my head is no longer there. There is no scar tissue. It’s as if it was never there.


***


When I woke up this morning there was a bump on my cheek, under the skin, just below the left eye socket. When I touched it, it moved. I poked it with my index finger and watched in the mirror as it slid down the inside of my cheek and came to rest on the point of my chin.

I stared at myself in the mirror for a very long time.

__________________
Bad Luck City