The alarm clock rang three times. On the first it sang, on the second it fell over, and on the third it exploded and sent little gears every which way.
One of the which ways was Thudmaker’s nose. A soft sigh and a shake of the head and the gear was out and Thudmaker was awake and on time, throwing off the rough sheets made from an old circus tent, putting on overalls that could hold two score and twenty men, scratching at an old scar left by a rogue bulldozer herd.
The little Thudmakers were well hard at work already, except for the littlest one, who was still in
bed, waiting for the flu medication to come, for the money for the flu medication to come. The biggest ones had made food for the littlest ones, and the littlest ones had gone exploring in the garden-heap and found a lump of granite: a glacial erratic dropped by a careless sea of ice some millennia ago.
It weighed one ton and it fit into Thudmaker’s beaten old lunchbox like a glove. Thudmaker packed it, and the little Thudmakers latched it, and they swarmed around with goodbyes and kisses and a single piece of mail in their parent’s hand. It was a postcard from the sea, who loved Thudmaker and was loved by Thudmaker but who was very busy and couldn’t stay often. It apologized for its absence, and praised Thudmaker’s patience, and asked after the little Thudmakers and the state of the roof (if it was still missing. It was.), and it made Thudmaker’s chest hurt a little to look at it.
The sun was nearly up. The day was almost begun. Thudmaker stood up to full height, full weight, full breadth, full self, and took three steps.
The first took Thudmaker out of the house. The second took Thudmaker out of the garden.
The third took Thudmaker into the hole.
And Thudmaker fell.
***
Thudmaker was big, and the hole was beyond that. There was no light to see by; there was no wind to rush through hair and teeth and eyelid; there were no walls to grip. There was nothing but Thudmaker and the fall and the fall couldn’t end and wouldn’t end. It hadn’t even begun, it didn’t have a middle how could it end? Past and present and future all gone in the world.
Just Thudmaker. And the fall.
So Thudmaker did the one thing that could be done, and took a deep, heavy breath and let it out slow, vast enough to push a tall ship, steady as a drumbeat. It went out, and out was the wind.
Then Thudmaker did the second thing that could be done, and felt the thud, thud, thud of blood moving through arteries that submarines could rove through. They pushed and pulled against time and tide, and time and tide was the sky.
And Thudmaker did the third thing that could be done, and looked, really looked, really looked at all that there was that wasn’t Thudmaker and would never be Thudmaker but might someday change its mind. And the world was there, and the hole had walls, and Thudmaker reached out an arm, strong and scaly, and caught hold and stopped the fall.
***
The hole was still too wide to see across. The hole was still deeper than imagining. The hole’s walls were clammy and rough and crumbly underneath Thudmaker’s titanium nails.
But they were there, and that was an improvement until Thudmaker looked up and saw what they were made of.
Oh. Oh no, Thudmaker, oh.
The missing roof swung out from the walls in an ugly overhang, letting in wind and rain to where the little Thudmakers should feel peace and serenity. Beside it the empty void where the sea should swim crawled against vision like a blind spot from the sun. The missing flu medication sparkled menacingly onwards for miles, each potential grip made of razor-bladed spun-sugar frailty.
Thudmaker’s arms were strong, and scaly, and could lift anything. But that sight, oh the sight of that wall. It shook and sapped muscles to gelatin; it could burn a mind down to embers with a glance. It couldn’t be seen, and it couldn’t be ignored, and with every breath it got higher and with every thought it grew crueller and it made you want to lie down and let go and just fall.
Thudmaker let go with one hand and reached with the other hand and felt around a bit under there was a ledge underfoot, then underbutt. Legs dangling, back hunching, Thudmaker rooted around in one pocket, then the other pocket.
Oh, there it was.
And Thudmaker had lunch, slowly, carefully. One bite at a time, chewing as much as could be managed before swallowing. Granite is hell on your digestion if you rush it, but there’s nothing like it for fuel, real fuel. There’s age and time on every tidbit on your tongue, and ore fit to make your blood sing, and on the cusp, on the very tip of each mouthful Thudmaker took there was a little frosted sliver of time that was the effort the littlest Thudmakers had gone to, to find that lunch.
Thudmaker finished lunch. And then, with every eye level, with every grip carefully placed, with nothing but the present, present, Thudmaker climbed.
And climbed.
Upwards, inevitably. Upwards, unstoppably.
Thudmaker climbed.
***
Thudmaker reached the top of the hole and couldn’t climb anymore. Thudmaker reached the top of the hole and couldn’t see anymore.
Thudmaker reached the top of the hole and couldn’t leave because the hole was being held down by a solid mass without mass or solidity; a stone that wasn’t; a thought that couldn’t; a hole within a hole without a matrix.
It was Thudmaker. It was nothing, and it weighed nothing, and it was immovable.
The hole yawned and widened just a little, gloating under Thudmaker’s feet.
So Thudmaker reached in the other pocket.
Nope. That was where lunch had been.
So Thudmaker reached in one pocket, and ah, there. There it was.
The postcard of the sea. It was a little bent on one edge where the little Thudmakers had gotten enthusiastic.
Thudmaker placed the postcard edge-on against the weight of nothing, and reached very carefully inside Thudmaker’s head, and pulled out a wisp of a sound: little voices, saying goodbye, saying they cared, saying they loved.
And Thudmaker tapped the little Thudmakers’ goodbyes against the sea’s postcard against the weight of nothing, and it was never there at all.
And Thudmaker pulled up, and up.
Out of the hole.
***
The sun was still barely rising, which made sense since the whole took place outside of time. That was good, because there was an important thing to be done.
Thudmaker knelt down in the gravel at the road’s edge and took hold of one side of the hole with one hand, and the other side of the hole with the other hand, and brought the hands together with a firm smack.
It was gone, and the way was safe.
Thudmaker stood up and shook a head that outweighed a streetcar and whistled through teeth that could crush cratons and started the walk into town, looking for jobs, looking for money, looking for medicine.
The hole would be there tomorrow.
But so would Thudmaker. And it hadn’t won yet.