Perforation

By Ryan Helcoski

It was a balmy spring morning and Mr. Robert Washington was trundling down a dirt road in a beaten-up Ford F-Series. Around him, the corn grew tall and lush and the surrounding windbreaks teemed with life. Passerines sang, corvids squawked, crickets chirped, bees hummed, cicadas droned. And then, without warning or reason, they all fell silent.

Startled, Mr. Washington stopped the vehicle and turned the key. The sputtering engine died and with it, sound itself.

Absolute silence.

For a moment, Mr. Washington sat. Then, he licked his lips and scratched his beard. He scanned the rows of corn from left to right and right to left. Unnerved but stubborn, Mr. Washington pocketed his keys and exited the vehicle.

The door squeaked on its hinges and his boots crunched in the dirt. The sound his actions generated reassured Mr. Washington that at the very least he was not deaf. Perhaps the animals had gone quiet. But that wasn’t right. Even the gentle breeze had died, and the corn stood stock-still.

Mr. Washington frowned and turned to enter the Ford when he heard a discordant chitter, a gentle warble that jittered and rippled in the air. It froze his blood.

“Hello?” he said.

Nothing.

And then, a whisper, a moan, an inhuman sigh, like the gaping of an endless mouth, a parable of speech murmured through insectoid lips. Mr. Washington’s hair stood on end, his eyes widened, his pulse hastened. The sound seemed to come from everywhere, and then nowhere, and then… just a few meters to his left. He turned his head, and the chittering intensified. Within the cornfield, there was a clearing, just barely visible, and within the clearing there was… something.

In one fluid movement, without looking away, Mr. Washington reached through the vehicle’s open window and pulled out a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. Then he chambered a round, took a deep breath, and walked into the field.

When Mr. Washington approached the clearing he saw something impossible. It was so impossible, in fact, that his brain simply refused to process it. His senses were in conflict. His eyes for example, were signaling that there, right in front of him, there was a something that was an everything. It was thick sludge seeping up from the earth, it was a plague of black locusts dotting the horizon, it was thick smoke, curling and winding around the field, it was a water nymph, coated in tar and dancing in ecstasy, an ever-expanding eye, a pool of honey, the mouth of a dead god.

It was, of course, none of these things. However, since Mr. Washington’s brain couldn’t place it into a preexisting category, it simply didn’t.

And so, for several agonizing moments, Mr. Washington stood in place, rooted to the ground, blinking and wincing and twitching. The shotgun dropped from his hands. Then his knees buckled and he collapsed. With his vision shifted and his hands on the ground, his optic, median, ulnar, and radial nerves finally agreed on one thing: that the stuff in front of his face, that stuff, was dirt. Though his ears buzzed and his pulse raced, his vision at least, agreed with his sense of touch.

It was then that Mr. Washington’s breathing came on in tremulous gasps. He was sweating, he was dizzy, he needed to vomit. But also, he needed to get the hell out of there. Exhausted, he crawled back to the road. There he tripped, retched, then rushed to push himself off the ground. He rose on wobbly legs and collapsed into the Ford.

And there he lay, breathing and shaking and coughing. Around him still, the natural world was silent. Around him still, the unknown world babbled and stridulated. Melodies ran on loops of ivory strings plucked by stygian talons. Mr. Washington felt tears welling behind his eyes. Saws strung across tender flesh, rattling bone dice and tittering worms, beating hearts and popping sockets.

Mr. Washington, still shaking, still breathing, fumbled for his keys. Now the sky came dark and pale, purple light in twisting amber. Mr. Washington tried to jam the key into the ignition.

Come on, get in damn you.

A distant thrumming now near ever-present everlasting. The laughter of children, tendons strung up and bowed.

Get it in!

Worlds into worlds give rise to flesh and bone. Immortal voices of the blessed and damned sing together in a golden spiral.

In, good!

Whispering lovers, hearts blaring through writhing viscera. Pulsing oozing forms spew forth gossamer symphonies.

Start damn you, start!

Relish our pain, spurn our joy. Embrace the music, give in to the eye. The eye.

Yes! Good, gas now.

The eye, the eye, the eye.

Gas, gas, gas!

Gentle human, loving world.

Embrace, embrace, embrace!

With a lurch, a sputter, and a kick, the Ford jolted to life and sped off like a shot. Mr. Washington’s heart was beating through his chest. Around him the fields flew by and ahead the narrow dirt road turned. Mr. Washington hit the curve at full speed, nearly overturning the F-series, but slow down he did not. The only thing on Mr. Washington’s mind was escape.

His foot did not come off the gas until he was at the driveway of the farmhouse. There, he slammed on the brakes so suddenly, his body folded over the steering wheel, expelling the air from his lungs and locking up the automatic seatbelt.

And there he sat, hands trembling, heart racing, ears ringing. Heavy sobs racked his body. Soothing music enveloped his heart. A reluctant smile split his face and a whimper caught in his throat. Then, tears streaming forth from bloodshot eyes, Mr. Washington exited the vehicle.

Within his mind, swirling golden spheres danced upon streaming threads of black ichor. Within his legs, nerves shocked muscles that pulled tendons and bones. Dread filled his gut and panic suffused his veins. And then, moaning, laughing, rejoicing, upon automaton legs puppeteered by silver strings, Mr. Washington turned and walked back the way he came.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Helcoski is a human who studies nonhuman things and their ecological impacts. His work has nothing to do with the incomprehensible.

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