Sinkhole

Hello Dear Readers,

After last night's strange encounter with nonhuman entities from realms I couldn't possibly imagine, I awoke eagerly awaiting payment for my services as the observer.  I checked my whole apartment, which only took a minute as it's a small loft and I have little in the way of possessions and furniture(with the exception of the picture you painted for me when I graduated high school, Suzie).  I decided to check outside, in case it was left there.

Instead, I found something very different waiting for me on my doorstep.  The ‘not a real cat’ sat there.  It looked up at me, giving me a cross look.

“It's not my fault you got stuck in a car,” I closed the door on it and went back to my morning routine.  Which includes listening to Kimberley Valentine on KMO 9.92.  This morning Kimberley interrupted her regular format with breaking news!  An enormous sinkhole had opened up and swallowed a large part of the street in the expensive Heights neighborhood on the far side of town.  It had happened sometime in the early morning.  The road was closed down until it could be fixed.

I was beside myself with excitement.  A sinkhole was an opening to the spaces beneath the Earth.  It granted access to whatever lived in those spaces beneath Kevin's Crossing.  I needed to get over there and investigate immediately.

Could this opportunity be my payment?  I had to get across town and investigate quickly as possible.  It was much too far to walk and I couldn't even begin to figure out how to get there by bus.  So I called everyone in my expanding circle of friends and associates until finally, Gemma agreed to take me there in her VW Bug.

On the way over I was trying to count graffiti when I saw something interesting.  Some of the 'Shh’ graffiti had X’s spray painted all over them.  But the knot graffiti had not changed since I first noticed it.  They were beginning to get old and faded.

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Later we stood outside a barrier of police tape.  Standing on our tiptoes trying to get a glimpse of the giant hole in the ground.  Emergency workers and police officers moved around the sinkhole like busy ants.  A crane was being brought in so someone could assess the situation from the inside.  I asked, but apparently, they were not taking volunteers.  People stood and tried to get a look.  The hole itself was so large that it had swallowed to parked cars when the street collapsed.  Everyone was staying well away from the edge in fear that it would collapse further.

“I can't see anything,” I whined.

“Did you think they would just let you stroll up to the thing and climb down a rope made of bedsheets?” She asked.

“Not the bedsheet part”.

I saw my friend Officer Eric and tried to wave him over to get some information.  He walked past and said, “Not this time, Buddy”.  I was distraught.  That sinkhole must lead to the tunnels below the town and contain unknown mysteries.  And I was stuck behind the yellow tape like all the other noisy onlookers.

“Do you know anyone with access to a satellite?  Maybe we can get some pictures that way.”

“No”

“That's a shame,” I was frustrated.

“What were you going to find down there anyways?  Captain Archer's treasure?”

“I was hoping for maybe some stone carvings or strange corpses.  But now that you mention​ it, I have a theory about Captain Archer's treasure.”

“Of course you do.”

“Well maybe he wasn't trying to hide it,” I suggested.

“Well, what would you call digging a hole and putting something in it and then covering it back up?” Gemma asked.

“What I mean is, maybe his plan wasn’t to hide the chest.  Maybe he was giving it to the people that live in the tunnels below,” I pointed at the ground for clarity.  “So it isn’t actually here anymore, they have it.”

She stared at me through her sunglasses with such a confused expression that I thought a large tropical bird had landed behind me.  Then she burst into laughter.  I tried not to look too sour.  It had already been a disappointing morning and this was just adding insult to injury.  She quickly pulled herself together and apologized.

“Oh, boy,” Gemma said as she wiped tears from her eyes.  “You’re a true believer aren’t you?”

“I believe in a lot of things,” I said, not entirely understanding the question.  She threw an arm around my shoulder and turned me away from the sinkhole.

“You're alright, kid, come on.”

 This was only the second time she had shown anything other than middle irritation towards me.

“You don’t believe in the tunnels?” I ask.

“Not really” she replied.

“But that’s why no one here has basements.”

“No one has basements because the water table is really high.  Every time it rained,  they’d all be flooded,” Gemma informed me.  To make her point she jumped in a puddle and smashed me.

“Oh,” I said, trying to not to look to disheartened.

“It'll be okay, TB  It'll be okay,” she said.

“So you believe in pirate treasure, but not subterranean civilizations?”  I was still having trouble wrapping my head around how a person could believe one thing, but not another.

“Well yeah,” he said.  “Pirates are a real thing.  But underground civilizations, not so much.”  She said with a shrug.

So we walked back her car.  We left with no sign of a subterranean civilization or giant albino salamanders.  This must not have been my payment for services rendered.  She drove me back to my apartment.  Fortunately, the cat was no longer there when I returned.  On the way back, Gemma stopped at the general store(isn’t it adorable that Kevin’s Crossing still has a general store), so I could pick up a table lamp and two tomato plants.  I have some experiments in mind.

PostScript

After our moment of bonding at the sinkhole, Gemma invited me that evening to go bowling with a group of friends.  She said it would be good for me to have some ‘non-mystery’ related human interactions.  While I was skeptical of this, I accepted the invitation.  It was a wonderful time.  Who knew that that hurling a heavy ball at twelve wooden pins with a group of people could be so much fun?!  Vic, Otto, and Robyn were there too!  Robyn and I talked about Ant People and chemtrails.  Fun facts about Robyn:

·         Her name is really spelled ROBIN, but she prefers to spell it with a Y.

·         She was raised by her Aunt, who used to buy her Weekly World News, which started her interested in strange and unusual events.

  They invited me to join in a few week at TrampolineWorld.  I will definitely attend!

I’ll keep you updated!