In ten years children will ask about the tiny holes polka dotting storefronts across America. They’ll put their small fingers into them where screws and nails were once bludgeoned into wooden boards. “What do these holes mean?” They’ll ask, and their parents will respond “They’re a reminder.” “Of what?” “We’ll tell you someday.” Then they’ll pester and whine demanding to know why there are holes on their favorite toy stores and fast food places. Why there are holes everywhere they look. Holes holes holes! They’ll grow up fearing them, and some will even walk around with liquid nail guns filling them. They’ll go on long tangents with their friends in the woods or on playgrounds theorizing and making childhood urban legends out of them. Parents will bite their tongues bloody fearing that if their kids knew they’d repeat the same behavior that was long abolished and now lives on only in the birthmarks of change that refuse to fade. They’d worry their children would want to know more about those split times, and like any good parent would spare them of that pain. The kids will grow into adolescence. Most of the holes will be filled by then and the fear of them forgotten in the twinkle of infancy. They’ll only notice them occasionally when standing in line at the movies or grabbing a coffee with a girl. One day, though, In the nonchalance Of a history book they’ll learn about the epidemic that eclipsed the earth, and how the sick sleeping world was awakened by the clamor of bigotry. How a man was murdered because the creator chose a different crayon to color him with, how the howls of anguish could no longer be stifled and demons were set free from their bird cages corrupting and smutting up the streets with their heartache, how the government stormed neighborhoods like the beaches of Normandy and laid siege upon the outraged, and how the insides of buildings became darker than dusk with no moonlight because boards were beaten into their windows with nails that when removed left miniscule craters, the water bucket of america poked through with holes.
Hunter Hodkinson is interested in literary and self reflective prose and poetry, and often tries to reflect this in his own work. Currently he has no official publications but has been recognized by a few local community colleges. He is a transplant New Yorker, born and raised in Ohio.
Kommentare