Black Hole of Nothingness

Dave Grazer straightened his tie, tilted his hat, hefted his briefcase and walked toward the black hole of nothingness. He had often been warned not to go into the black hole, even as a child. His mother said, "Don't go into the black hole. If you do, God will kill you." But other kids had gone in the black hole, and they turned out fine. They would drip out of the sky, cocooned in slimy armor, wires fraying from their heads, bright red gashes ripped into their asses. But they seemed ok. They seemed at peace with their mangled noses and glassy eyes full of wonder and vacancy.

Dave decided he was tired of being in middle-management, so he figured the black hole couldn't be so bad. He dipped his foot in, felt the piercing blackness swallow it up. Then he changed his mind. He didn't want to go into the black hole anymore. But his foot had already went in. So when Dave retracted his foot, it was no longer there. Phantom toes wiggled, but no foot. Just a clean, surgical cut. No blood, just like his leg was tofu.

A couple of minutes later, Dave's toes dropped from thin air. Bleeding from a purple tear in the sky, his toes trickled onto the pavement, pieces of his Italian loafers still grafted on. The toes wriggled on the ground like dying worms, many neon colored wires jutting, stamps of strange alien tongues on the toenails.

Dave hobbled over to his toes, scooped them up and put them in his pocket. He decided he'd listen to his mother from now on.

But she WAS wrong about the portal to Hell. It wasn't quite as hot as he'd expected.

Philip Overby

*originally posted at The New Absurdist