SPELLING

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

Nap was the wrong word for the pit into which he fell. A black cylinder opened up beneath him. He braced himself against the top of the walls but they were slick like oil and down he went. Light was gone. Air was gone. Ideas were gone. Family was gone. Home was gone. Down at the bottom, all he had was sleep and the idea of sleep, which was something closer to death. At least there was a bottom. At least there was something solid beneath him: Blackness, but not hard and not cold, more a kind of soil. He felt around in it with his fingers and made out shapes that he knew were the tops of letters, sharp points of capital As, rounded shoulders of Bs, curves of Cs. He could dig those letters up and make words with them. But he was sleepy again, there in his nap, and he pushed the letters back into the blackness that was like soil and stretched out flat and thought about everything that was gone, and then about nothing.