Head Like a Hole

by Andrew Van Wey

At forty, Anwar Fariz is a veteran of journalism’s changing trenches.

Last year, his true crime podcast Suburban Murders brought in a half million in advertising. His spinoff, Small Town Sex Crimes, was nominated for an Ambie.

Megan Collings, forty-six, artist of minor acclaim and mother of two.

Perhaps Symon and Sofiy will think of her cooking someday, long after the baseball practices are over and the parent-teacher conferences have finished. Maybe that’s what immortality is: remembering the tastes of your youth while feeding your children.

Maybe that’s what immortality is: remembering the tastes of your youth while feeding your children.

She turns the card over. There’s his company, TANGLED PRODUCTIONS, LLC, and a little microphone crossed with a magnifying glass and a pair of muddy footprints.

“It’s about Oksana Samarina.”

People want to be heard, especially when they’ve been misheard, misquoted, and misunderstood. It’s why we relive old arguments in the shower until we’ve won.

Anwar taps the journal. “Look, I’ve already read my uncle’s story. Tell me what happened to your friends.” Then he taps the tape recorder between them. “I want to hear your version. Don’t you think people should know your side of the story?”

“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.”

Chuckling to himself, Louis reached out with the gaff and brushed the last crab from her face. Its claw snatched at her hair, peeling back that silver matte like rotten curtains, revealing a mud-freckled face, pale and wet and quivering with life. The woman opened her right eye.

“Can… Can you hear me?” His quaky voice startled him, rejuvenating his doubt. You’re in a boat, Lou. You’re talking to some thing you’ve

pulled up with the crabs. Think, Lou. Think. “Ma’am, give me a sign if you understand.”

Her neck muscles strained. Was that a nod? Hard to tell, but definitely a reaction. “Nod if you can hear me.” Could a head nod without its torso attached? Could a neck move without most of its ...

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.

“Let’s rewind. I was in a coma for two weeks. My parents died in a house fire I can’t remember. I’m an artist. I have a thousand odd thoughts every day. But you asked about dreams.”

“I wouldn’t know ’cause she hasn’t talked to me since the fire. Which she blames me for. Which, of course, was probably my fault since it began in my room. So yeah, that’s a fun one playing on the mental tape deck.”

The sea had grown through her. Or maybe, he sensed, she’d grown into the sea.

That’s the power of memory, he supposes. Every one is unique, carved into neurons and strengthened through emotions and senses. It’s why so many adults never move past the music of their youth.

“And to answer your question,” Megan says, “of course I miss them. 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. I revisit the past often these days. But I couldn’t back then.”

“I wish I could have warned them about the storm that was coming.”

At first he didn’t dare unravel the clothed bandages. After a day he worked up the courage to peek underneath. Oksana had chewed right through him, of course, leaving nothing past the knuckle. He couldn’t even pick his nose properly now.

“Book of Revelations, hello.” She tapped her fingers on the counter. “The name of the fallen star is Wormwood.”

The boat bag lay on its side, Oksana’s head still stretching out like some terrible jack-in-the-box. She flexed her new mandible, letting it settle under her cheeks with a click. It occurred to Louis that he was watching something like a hermit crab trading out shells. It didn’t make much sense, but love never did. And that was what he was feeling now, love. Oksana chose him and he had a duty, an obligation. That was what a man did; he put those that he loved above himself.

“Oksana’s from Ukraine,”

But not Oksana. Despite the radiance bursting from her skin, Megan could sense a smile in there, in the light, on the lips of her old roommate, her study partner, her friend whose name she had hardly spoken in years.

Louis Harding. The Tenbury School. A missing girl named Oksana. Chunhee Chang and now Desiree and Tom.

“That’s what Chernobyl means, wormwood.”