Circles

Henriette woke to a loud rhythmic booming engulfing her wooden cabin. It was as if the ground were carving out an orifice within itself, splaying the dark trees out to either side, before unclenching and allowing everything to crash down again. The sound itself was subdued, muffled by the dense layer of pine needles and grasses lining the ground, but the ensuing rattle of porcelain against glass that occurred right beside her head each time her eyes blinked had begun to strain her semiconscious brain into freneticism.

She got dressed and went outside, the doorstep still spotted with water from the prior flood. If only I had chosen higher ground, she thought, looking around at the five great hills walling in the flat circle. Or maybe they weren’t hills, and her home had been constructed in a pit. In all fairness, she reminded herself, it had been so long since she’d left that she might as well resign herself to ignorance. Both explanations probably held a grain of truth. Even the trees had forgotten their circumstances, leaving only the wise osmanthuses to keep record and remain fresh-minded. Henriette made a plan to ask them later, once Earth’s unusual churn had decided to cease. Assessing the source of the percussive element, she raised her eyes from the dainty white flowers at the house’s side, and was shocked to see that, indeed, literal holes were opening and shutting in the crust beneath her, as if it were a bubbling cauldron. Growing nervous, Henriette sacrificed her beloved osmanthuses and plugged the stems down her ear canals until the flower appeared to be spindling out from within her. The plants drooped slightly as she ran back inside.

The inescapable thought of what the holes gave way to infiltrated her dreams. The rattling of her pantryware continued. When Henriette went outside to bury the plates, glasses, pots and pans, and cutlery, instead of digging a hole herself, she peered down one that had occurred outside of her jurisdiction, and dropped the foodwares hurriedly. Her curiosity got the better of her, though, and she approached the hole again. What she saw surprised her. A gray cloud cover loomed, and lightning struck uncontrollably. She couldn’t make out the bottom, and while the vaporous air rising from the pore suggested rain, its characteristic rustle was not fully detectable. The osmanthus flowers were still in her ears.

As a result, she didn’t hear her door swing open right before sunrise. It also helped that the ground was still respirating. However, when two firm hands began to shake her shoulders, her eyes opened well beyond their normal point of ouverture, and took a while to break through the onset blur. Standing before her was a tall, somewhat lanky fellow with long curly blond hair. His garments were wet, although it hadn’t rained since the holes sprung open in the first place. His face was significantly longer than it was wide, and his resting expression was neutral, if a smidge bored. “Who are you?” he asked.

Henriette didn’t respond. She felt no fear, but her ability to self-express had been suspended. Unfazed, the man paced in small circles, restricted by the cabin’s dimensions. He drifted into the kitchenette at the left edge of the bed and returned soon after. “You shouldn’t stay here, you know,” he warned. “I’d be happy to escort you to higher ground. I’m afraid this plateau won’t be safe for you much longer.”

This puzzled Henriette, who had become very attached to her homely environs. “Truthfully,” the man continued, “soon enough, there won’t be any safety. But there also won’t be danger. Who needs duality, anyway?” His stern air had faded, and Henriette grew comfortable again despite his unsettling words.

“In answer to your earlier question,” she said hoarsely, turning over in bed, “I’m Henriette.”

The man smiled slightly. “Myles.” He returned to the task at hand shortly after. “Listen to me, Henriette. Things will start to happen very quickly. We only have moments left before we must go. But first, do you have any wine?”

She shook her head. “Only osmanthus tea.” Myles looked lost, but agreed to take some for the road in the flasks his host had stitched years before. The fire was much warmer today than it had ever been before, and the water boiled almost instantaneously. Henriette left all her belongings behind besides the osmanthus tea. Anguished though she was, Myles’s warnings validated her fears regarding the ruptures in the cradling soil.

After walking uphill for numerous hours, through monotonous grasses and picket arches formed by trees, Myles stopped and decided to set up camp. Henriette was shaken without her osmanthuses, and even as she dodged gaping pores springing up at random intervals, she snuck pained glances back at her vegetable-lined oasis. Its slanted roof needed to be restained, she thought, pushing onward resignedly.

The travelers drank the tea they had set aside for themselves, noting its unusually sweet, even buttery taste. Neither of them felt particularly hungry. Paradoxically, the more they walked, the further they exhausted their energy reserves, the less the elements weighed on them.

“This should be far enough,” Myles said, breaking the silence. A convenient weather pattern had formed: the mild night was no colder than the day, and the temperature range had narrowed to a few degrees. The heat from under them, the same inflammatory sensation that had cut the water boiling time into ten, forced a limbo with the upper cold currents. There was no need for a fire, so Myles assembled two lightly-padded lean-tos without much effort. Only a very thin layer of dried pine needles disguised their floors, but the ground was nonetheless remarkably comfortable.

Henriette retreated into the higher, more remote lean-to and prepared to drift off. “Goodnight,” she called out. Myles acknowledged her with a wave and a thin smile, but didn’t show signs of fatigue or intentions of sleeping. He sat with his hands on his raised knees, deep in thought. Although she wondered what was circling in his mind, she elected not to interrogate him. He didn’t seem particularly open.

She dreamed about falling through complete dark nothingness. Her hands, even an inch from her face, were invisible. She fell and fell and fell until she was once again woken against her will by a harsh growling, followed by a tremendous roar, emanating from Myles’s lean-to. Darting back in his direction, she froze when she saw a hulking canine behemoth with three heads and browning fangs tearing at her companion’s shirt and skin. A moment later, though, she set off up the hill, parallel to the beast’s ambush. Myles spotted her out of the corner of his right eye and summoned up his strength to give a final desperate yell. “Matter is dissolving in on itself!” he managed, “the world…as you know it…is ceasing to exist.”

Henriette’s situation worsened unimaginably when a hole opened beneath her and she fell toward the center of the Earth, through storm and rain, through sleet and hail, through deep lakes and raging fires. Eventually everything around her had fallen into the ash black equilibrious void of her dream.