Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

Two years of pent-up frustration and it had all poured forth.

This leaves me wanting more of a blowup from her. She said less than 100 words. To me, that doesn't really feel like 2 years of pent-up frustration and heartache. It feels like she lost steam a quarter of the way through.

If she wasn’t outwardly happy, she could never be hurt.

“Drugs?”

Is there a reason this was his first thought? She doesn't seem like the type, and nothing up to this point has led us to believe there's any merit to this question. So far, Adam seems like a Class A Jerk.

And yes, he placed his ruined finger into her waiting mouth. He screamed when she bit down. He didn’t stop screaming until her lips reached his knuckle.

Salty iron coated her tongue as the words HUNGRY and LIFE flashed deep in her mind.

I can't figure out if Louis finding the head is before or after her group. I'm very confused so far. This feels like a mystery and a thriller all at once.

Megan was horrified to discover she had kicked a vagrant with no legs and one arm.

I'm going to hell for laughing at that. Good lord.

It was bullshit, of course, but it clung to her, somehow both a virgin and the school slut. Her inner thighs still bore the scars of the X-Acto she’d dragged across just to feel anything other than shame.

I unfortunately know exactly how this entire situation feels. This hits deep.

“Happy? Life isn’t Barney & Friends. I mean, who’s really happy? But she’s alive, right? That’s good enough.”

I like to think we’re the sum total of all those who helped us or hurt us or simply shared our life for a moment.

His neighbor pulled double duty as a dentist and a substitute teacher. His computer repairman was also the local butcher. The mayor, who lived down the street, was also the church deacon and the local mechanic. Finding him was just a matter of driving down Main Street, which only took a few minutes.

I have wanted to live in a tiny town like this my whole life. Something about living in a place like this feels nostalgic, even though I've never experienced it.

But this starfish, it had mouths along its limbs, little slits that puckered and gulped in the shadows. It had jagged teeth glistening violet.

Time doesn’t heal everything but our scars give us strength.

With a damp thump, the man’s body hit the hedges. His head bounced across the grass, a few feet away.

The strangled noise that came out of my mouth when I realized he just severed his own head.

A book? What was she thinking? Kids needed real entertainment, not stupid pages with stupid words he didn’t always understand.

I had to remind myself this is just a book because this made me so sad to read. I'd have been positively thrilled at a brand new book.

Maybe she was the key to all this, the center around which this twisted case swung.

I am almost positive that this is correct. Megan is absolutely at the center of this.

“The deepest bonds are elemental, built upon the friction of opposition. Water and fire, night and day, life and death. The transition from adolescence to adulthood lives at this nexus. It’s why you remember the chapped lips of your first kiss and the songs of the summer. Why true awe is your first trip to Fenway Park, with your friends. And why nothing ever tastes as delicious as that hotdog they bought you.”