Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

“Can you really make money at this podcasting thing?” And it turns out you can, if you find the right niche and kick over a few rocks. If you’re willing to get dirty.

She’ll never know that he booked this plane ticket last month.

And now, watching her lock up the car and head past a lawn strewn with toys, Anwar feels a moment of pity for Megan Collings, forty-six, artist of minor acclaim and mother of two. She has no idea her past is about to catch up with her.

“It’s okay if you’ve never heard of me.” “To be honest, I’m more of an audiobook listener.”

“It’s about Oksana Samarina.” Megan’s throat dries and constricts.

He knows. God help her, he knows. And that’s why he’s here.

For the first time in years, she’s aware of the scar. It’s starting to itch.

It tastes like adrenaline. It tastes like fear.

Let the interviewee believe you know everything. Give them silence and they’ll tell you so much.

But its contents are ageless.

She’ll beg to tell him.

And that old boyfriend of yours, Adam, funny how he vanished around the time my uncle went missing.

But he knows the truth. It’s another prop for the performance. He’s been wired up with a second mic since he turned off the engine. He’s been recording since he knocked on her door.

“I want to hear your version. Don’t you think people should know your side of the story?” “No,” she says. “No?” She sips her white wine, eyes drifting to the window and that warm cobalt sky. Two more vultures have started circling. “No. It’s not my story, but I’ll tell it if that’s what you want. It’s hers. And it’s a love story.”

Oh tea, clock him gurlie pop

I’ll Never Get Over You (Getting Over Me)

The same that would pay double for crabs at the farmers market as long as he writes LOCALLY SOURCED on their shells. Rich idiots, he thought. That’s who.

When the cage neared the surface, he smiled. It was teeming with crabs. Dozens of legs and claws and shells all rolling and crawling over each other. His lucky day. Until he emptied the pot.

Because of that thing underneath… He told himself it was just some pale rubber. Maybe a silver net of some sort all tangled against it. Or a doll. Those silver-gray clumps, they couldn’t be hair… Could they?

Yes, because you know what you saw, a little part of him whispered. Your mind understands what you’re still trying to deny.

The woman opened her right eye.

Her eye. The dead woman’s eye, it was open. It was looking at him.

Oh gross

Then he was there, at the end of the tunnel, the end of the boat and within inches of her; he’d crawled the whole way. He found himself unsure what to call it. She was more than a mere head and far less than a body. A quarter torso? And her skin. From the far side of the boat, her flesh looked ready to slide off with a touch.

Not beauty or lust but something comforting and safe. A glowing stove on a cold, snowy night.

Louis choked down his fear. This poor woman, she needed him now.

Please, don’t leave me, she whispered. Please, just follow my words. So that’s what he did.

In the November wind, Louis Harding stripped off his clothes, vaulted overboard, and dove into the bitter black depths.

What's going on????

Then the entryway, with the grandfather clock and family pictures: her father’s hairline silvering and retreating, her mother’s hard lines setting in, and Megan’s smile shrinking from the broad, toothy laugh of elementary school to the flat line that marked her middle and high school years.

The fire that had consumed the two-story colonial in Stonefield, Connecticut, burned so hot it ignited the meadow shared with her neighbors.

By summer’s end the kids in town had started whispering as she passed. “Don’t let her drive your car or she’ll crash it and split your head open.” “Don’t let her into your house or she’ll burn it down while you sleep.” But not all had been burned. Not here.

“They’re friendly if you don’t look them in the eye.”

“Hey, you can’t rush inspiration.” He sipped his cold coffee. “No, you certainly cannot.”

Last fall, they’d all watched the O.J. trial live, Senior dozing off in the corner while Junior grumbled, “He did it. Trust me, it’s in the eyes. That son of a bitch did it and got away.”

And it’s not a diary. It’s more for taking inventory of my thoughts.” “Ah, that headshrinker stuff.”

Somedays, he treated her as if he was handling nitroglycerin. Sometimes, he asked how she really felt.

“Adam Verhooven,” she said, the nostalgia tugging at her lips. “What the hell are you doing in Philly?” His smile matched her own, a thing of shared history. “Megan Monroe. Well, I came to see you.”

why's that kinda cute

He didn’t answer for some time, so she let the silence linger. Two years of pent-up frustration and it had all poured forth.

“You said you needed to ask me something. So, what is it?” He hesitated, smiling and shaking his head. “It’s going to sound silly, but…” He turned, making sure the waitress was out of earshot and the table beside them had cleared out. “Have you been having any strange dreams?”

He told her about his recurring dream but went light on the details. Like the fact that each dream started with them making love and ended with her as a corpse.

WHAT DID HE SAYYYYYYY

About the body in his bed, hers yet something else too. About when he slid inside, he felt connected to something other. And about how certain songs always flashed through his mind before his eyes opened. He could tell he was losing her.

If he was wrong about this feeling, well, he might be losing his mind. And if he was right? He wasn’t sure what it meant. Only that he was in danger. She was as well. Maybe they all were.

Yet she stood there, frozen. June had been quite rude, hadn’t she? But maybe there was more to her. Cindy hoped so. Or maybe she was just a bitch.

Parts of the drive felt so distant. And then he was here.

Oksana. It was the most beautiful name he’d ever heard.

Oksana was starving, she said, so he went to the kitchen.

“So, I’m just, uh… Well, ma’am, I’m just gonna feed you now.” Oksana. My name is Oksana. “Okay, Oksana.”

He stifled another gag with the back of his forearm, eyeing those teeth of coral and shells.

“Life,” she repeated. “Give… Life.”

she craves flesh

Flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood. 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.

You’re a fake; you’re a fraud. Another art poser, slides in your pocket and a broken brain in your skull.