Everything around me turned a shade of green. Even the sun beamed down a hue of blue-green and I had this sudden urge like a dog in an open field to dig into the ground and make a hole to the other side of the world. I knelt onto the ground and dug my fingers into the soil, getting fragments of dust under my fingernails. The layers of land turned different colors as I dug deeper and deeper. I wanted so badly to find something new on the other side to get excited about. To feel excitement again.
Bugs began to emerge around my hands and soon I had dug deep enough to step inside the hole and be surrounded by the edges of the earth. It smelled of grass and dirt and I wiped my brow of the sweat that pooled. It was colder inside the hole. And somehow I felt more comfortable there.
“Is this what you wanted?” A voice said out of nowhere. I was confused all of a sudden.
“What?” I asked, startled, spinning around to try to find the source of the sound.
“Is this what you were looking for?”
“A hole to dig myself into?”
“Yes… a place to hide your fears.”
“I don’t think so.” I replied.
“Then why are you here?” It asked.
“I want to see what’s on the other side of this place. I think someone is waiting for me on the other side.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I am?”
“Why don’t you just keep digging then.”
By the end of the voice’s last utterance, to my surprise the earth below me disappeared and I had the sensation of falling. All around darkness surrounded me as weightlessness overtook gravity and the sky above began to disappear into a small bright white light in the shape of a circle. But in no time it vanished and I hit the floor of a new world, my head began pounding from the harsh impact.
When I opened my eyes, everything was blurry and colors traced the lines of corners and edges and I found that I could not decipher where things began and ended. Everything was so colorful.
“Where are you?” I screamed with the last ounce of breath I had inside of me.
But there was only silence.
2013
Michelle Lee Proksell