Dangling

To Whom It May Concern,

I wish I could go back. We all do. It’s too late though, and what’s done is done.

It’s been precisely thirty four days since we discovered the tunnel beneath our house. While under the influence of a unique boredom that comes with being under quarantine, my family began sorting through the junk in our house and throwing things away. My daughter found the trap door first. At first we found it strange that we never saw it when we moved in. It wasn’t hidden. 

Being naturally curious creatures, we opened the door and entered the tunnel that lay before us. The further we delved, the darker it got, but at a certain point a faint glimmer of light began to overpower the darkness. We pressed on. What we found was a large room with one light dangling from the ceiling. Branching out from this room were at least 20 other tunnels similar to the one we had entered.

My son suggested we split up, but my wife thought it better that we stay together. We chose one of the tunnels and crawled through until we came to a door. We opened it, looked out, and saw our house. Thinking we had gone down the same tunnel we started with, we crawled back down to the central room. There were two light bulbs dangling from the ceiling now. We decided to split up this time, all four of us taking a different tunnel. Upon investigation and returning to the center, we found three light bulbs dangling. Upon conferencing with one another, we realized that each tunnel led to the same place: our home. 

Since it seemed that every tunnel led to the same place, we picked one randomly and decided to return home. This was our biggest mistake.

We crawled through the tunnel, exited back through the door, and continued going about our daily lives. Initially nothing seemed off or out of place. A rain storm began that afternoon so we stayed indoors for a couple days, as was becoming normal for us during the quarantine. Once the rain subsided, we went outside to play soccer in the front yard. That’s when my daughter saw it.

A raven was flying through the air, but something was not right. It was flying upside down. Its belly was face-up. While this was shocking, the bird continued flying as if everything was normal. We shrugged this off and went about our soccer match. My son and I were down two to one against my wife and daughter. In a moment of desperation, my son took a few steps back and kicked the ball as hard as he could. It went high, and then it kept going. The ball floated away like a balloon. We all stood there in awe watching the ball become a small dot in the sky and eventually disappear.

None of us knew what to say or do. Perhaps the tunnel had led us to the wrong version of our home? How is that even possible? My son ran to the trap door, but it was gone. It had vanished, as if it had never been there in the first place. We tried calling our family, but none of our phones were working. Panic set-in, but eventually we calmed enough to begin having a conversation. It was then that we realized that we hadn’t seen any of our neighbors or even anyone driving around. While this was normal during the quarantine, with the weird occurrences happening, we began to wonder where the people were. 

Two more days went by and still no sign of anyone. I decided that I wanted to visit our neighbor to see if he had seen anything unusual. As soon as I stepped off our property, I felt my body go weightless. I had to grab on to our fence to make sure I didn’t float away. I was holding on, my fingers slipping and undoubtedly full of splinters, as my feet dangled high in the air. Luckily I was able to pull myself back down to the ground. On our side of the fence, I was back on the ground without struggling to stay there.

With a firm grip on the fence, I cautiously crossed my leg over the property line. I felt a tingle run up my toes and start to creep up my leg as the weightlessness began to take effect. I quickly retracted my leg before anything worse happened. I ran inside the house and told my family. Naturally, they didn’t believe me so they went outside with me and I conducted a demonstration. 

I started with a small rock. I nudged it over our property line, and it immediately floated away like the ball. Everyone was shocked. We went and grabbed larger objects to see if the same thing would happen to them, and it surely did. Our first reaction was fear. We were trapped. My wife saw this as an opportunity for us to get rid of the junk we no longer needed. We grabbed a broken bicycle the kids didn’t use any more and tossed it over the line. It slowly dwindled away. We waved goodbye with smiling faces. We continued doing the same with other things we no longer needed including a stained sofa, a bookcase missing some shelves, and our old washing machine. 

Eventually boredom set-in. We got carried away and sent most of our belongings drifting into space. Sitting in a stripped-down house and eating our limited rations, we struggle to find a meaning for our existence. 

If you are reading this note, then not all hope is lost. We sent this message in a bottle by letting it float away into the sky. Where it landed or where it ended up, we haven’t the faintest guess. We live at 622 North Euclid Avenue in Stockton, California. Please do what you can to save us. We are running out of food and sanity. Sending one or both would be helpful. 

Sincerely,

The Styles Family