The man in the hole

So anyway there was this guy and he was walking along, minding his own business and looking up at the sky and thinking how the clouds looked like “Attack of The Killer Cauliflower”, when suddenly he fell into a hole in the sidewalk, right up to his waist!

Squiggle and squirm though he did he just couldn’t pull himself out. A crowd gathered and a man from the City Bureau of Large Ominous Holes came forth. He said that there would be no way to pull the man out without damaging the integrity of the hole, causing a chain reaction and destroying earth and life as we know it.

The man in the hole, having suspected this might happen to him, this wasn’t the first time in his family, decided there was no need to make a fuss and to live life on as usual.

He had his wife sell the house, which surprisingly she did, and set up a tent next to him so that he could see her and his son. He had his office work brought straight to the hole and never missed a deadline.

Sadly of course his life didn’t always go smoothly. He argued with his wife who said she felt they weren’t as intimate as before, at which point he did kind of point to the hole. His son was also annoyed because his dad never came to his concerts or went and played ball with him. Again the father pointed to the hole. His family felt he used that excuse for everything and one day they up and left. This wasn’t so bad, and he soon forgot their faces. (Though he remembered their shins and ankles for a lot longer but those memories also eventually faded.)

He worked a lot but never forgot to sit back, figuratively speaking, and enjoy life. In winter he had a small shelter put over him and, except for one bad fire caused by his heater and him having no where to run, it was a warm and toasty place to be. In summer a nice umbrella did him well against the sun and occasional downpours, though mud leaking into his nethers did lead to some discomfort and the danger of flash floods was never far from his mind.

Eventually he met Julie, the librarian from across the road who didn’t mind that he was half the man he used to be. She set up her own tent next to him, his wife having gotten the other one in the divorce. (He could have protested but never showed up at court.)

The couple didn’t have any children but that wasn’t a surprise, they just felt they weren’t able to be parents.

He worked very hard and sometimes Julie would complain of his late nights. But not too often since they weren’t that much different from his early ones.

Eventually He retired and the couple decided to see the world. So Julie bought him an atlas and DVD entitled “The world in photos” for his 60th birthday.

Julie had a bad hip but he never had any problems with his legs.

Eventually one day, the man woke up dead and all his friends and family, namely Julie, a few passers by and the rat that had started nibbling on his face at night, gathered around as the work men sort of stuffed the last of him down the hole and covered him up with good quality cement, the way they knew he wanted to go.

Some people say they can still hear the sound of a man yelling, “Get your dog off of my face!” to this very day!




JR Hudson