I wasn’t having the best day, the day I fell into the Hole, but it certainly didn’t help. I was late for work for the third time that week, and I was dead sure they were going to fire me for it. I can’t even say for sure how much that would have bothered me, to be quite honest. Having a job was sometimes as agonizing as not having one, and it could be worth flipping the switch back in the other direction for a few months, if only to breathe. Doing this multiple times in a fiscal year was a recipe for ruin, but if you could hold onto a gig for long enough that your relationship with the Unemployment Office reset, then you could find yourself in a nice period of rest–if a bit poorer for your troubles. But I digress.

I was running late for work, and because I was running late for work, I missed the bus, and because I missed the bus, I would be even later for work and–well, you can see how these things compound, can’t you? I was well and truly hoofing it across an empty field when it happened. There was a lot of farmland around the City at that time, and if you tried to cross from one borough to another using purely City streets, you were going to wish you hadn’t. So there I was, heaving my messenger bag and my briefcase like a certified job-having fellow when, like something out of a cartoon rerun of Old, the ground ran out under my feet. Utterly disappeared. I swear to you I hung there for what felt like ten seconds, as though some God older than God was forcing me to reflect on the sheer silliness of my predicament. But eventually, gravity did its inevitable job, and I began my long fall.

Falling for as long as I did, it just doesn’t feel right. The weight bearing down, the inertia, the disconcerting tension–the human body simply isn’t built for it for more than a few seconds. But you’ll have to take me for my word when I tell you I fell for what felt like hours. I fell for so long, it became boring after a time. If I could afford a timepiece, I’d have been checking it to verify just how long I’d been careening down into nothing. Falling for that long, it became oddly comforting, after the boredom. By the time I hit dirt, I’d almost fallen asleep, truthfully. But hit dirt I did, and fall asleep I did not.

I suppose I should have died when reaching the terminus of my descent, and maybe I did. But as far as I could tell, I was alive and well, bones intact and skin unexploded. Strangely enough, hitting the ground was less a brutal crash and more a gentle let-down. Less being thrown from a great height, and more being guided into bed by a kind lover. The dirt was cool and damp, and sunk underneath my weight. I lay there for I’m not sure how long, flat on my back, perhaps because sitting up and taking stock would be tantamount to accepting that I had, indeed, fallen down a hole of some great and otherworldly size. But much like gravity doing its job and the dirt rising to meet me, I would have to do my part whether I wanted to or not.

Sitting up and affirming that my bones hadn’t disintegrated, a thought crossed my mind–the thought that perhaps any reasonable person would have if they’d been spirited away by some unwelcome pit: I should probably call for help. But friend, would you believe me if I told you I gave up on the notion before it had even finished its crossing? Looking up, the walls of dirt, soil, and sediment stretched so high as to flirt with the infinite. The sky above was a pinprick; a needle of light cast down into the deep dark, illuminating only the faintest dot within my muddy landing place. Sod it, the words interrupted the thoughts of pleas for help unceremoniously. It’s just as well, after all. I’d have some time to rest now. I’d surely be fired. That’s more time. If I didn’t die. Which I supposed I probably would, then, if I hadn’t already. But what is death, if not the long rest at the end of a life of toil? I could feel my father laughing at me from the Beyond at the idea that Officework was toil, but work is work. Labor is labor. And we were never meant to labor as much as we do, to rest as little as we rest.

And so I lay back down, and watched the bright blue dot in the ceiling slowly turn to the tangerine-pink hues of sunset, then to the light grays of twilight, until the hole itself was almost invisible, betrayed only by the specks of starstuff as far off from the planet as I was from its surface. I lay there, for how long I do not know. And then I slept.

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I awoke, as one does in unfamiliar environs, a bit bewildered. The Hole acted as a sort of temporal deprivation chamber; I had no idea how long I’d slept, or whether it was day or night. Checking the dot at the peak of the chasm, I was alarmed to discover that my peephole into what was previously my everyday life had vanished. What’s more, I had become encompassed entirely by the soil; not in the way one gets buried on the beach, but relative to the open-air pit the Hole had been before I’d dozed off, this new Dirtroom was more than a bit cramped. I estimated the ceiling was no more than six feet in height; I was not a man blessed by height, but even still, I wondered as I lay there at how prone my head would be to scraping the makeshift ceiling.

Still, despite these immense shifts in my surroundings, I felt in my chest something like pride. Hard as it was to explain to myself, there was some quiet hubris that came with surviving a fall of the magnitude I’d experienced, of defying destiny. If you survived, my thoughts interrupted.

“No matter,” I countered aloud.

Whether or not I was alive hardly mattered. I was here, and I was conscious of my surroundings. Act as if, my mother would always say, and so I would. For the first time since waking, I willed my bones and muscles to comply, and began my slow rise. Propped up on one arm, I became aware of the soil once more, its cushioned and damp foundation ducking compliantly under my weight. The act of motion after being still so long in this netherplace felt weightless. I felt lighter somehow, like my bones were coated with a lifting agent–not enough to float off, but enough to feel aided in every movement. Focusing on my senses, my ears returned a ring, albeit a gentle one. The air smelled of cut grass. And rain? Something wet, to be sure. It was hard to see much of anything other than the general dim shape of the Dirtroom, and the glowing eyes in the corner. Wait–

“Ho and hey there, kiddo,” a warm, scratchy voice called out.

It was impossible to make out the features of who had just spoken, but it very clearly was not human. Its form just… wasn’t right. Call it the uncanny valley, but in that moment, there was nothing of which I was more certain.

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“I am no child.” My voice cracked, betraying my apparent maturity.

“Eh, when you get to be my age, everyone past a certain point seems like a kid.”

“And just how old might you be, exactly?”

“Older than the first tree, son. Older than the oceans and the Gods.”

I could not see, but it felt from the creature’s voice that it was grinning.

“Wait–really? How… do the logistics of that work, like, creation wise?”

The being chuckled at this, though truthfully it was less a chuckle and more a whistling wheeze.

“Alright, you caught me. I’m not that old. Sounds mighty impressive though, don’t it?”

“So, how old are you, then?”

“Well,” they said, pausing for a time. “Now that you mention it, I guess I don’t know. Ha!” That whistling wheeze again. “I don’t know how old I am, sonny! I better be as old as I feel; these bones ache like the Elders, that they do.”

The figure in the corner of the Dirtroom struck something–a match?--then, and brought the flame to their face. A smooth, obsidian-black beak stretched out from a feathered plume. Though their hands appeared frighteningly human-like, their face was nigh indistinguishable from that of a crow. The blood orange flame cast myriad shadows across their face, reflecting off the glowing yellow eyes I had first noticed. They lit a pipe that was pinched between their beak and inhaled deeply. Exhaling the smoke, the room filled with a sweet and enticing scent not quite like anything in the world above. It dazed me a bit, and my head started not quite spinning, but certainly tilting and tipping.

“Am I…” It was difficult to will the words to be released, despite my pride. “Am I dead, do you think?”

Releasing another plume of smoke, the creature put their hands down on two leathery legs, the light of their pipe revealing knees which bent the wrong way back.

“Shoot, I hope not. Reckon that’d mean I’m dead too.” They stepped closer, their eyes combing me up and down. “Are you dead?”

“I don’t feel dead.”

“Probably not dead then!”

“I hope not.”

“I’m with you, kid.”

“Maybe best not to think about it.”

“I sure wouldn’t,” they said, stretching lazily. I caught the general shape of wings sweeping out from the length of their arms, extending maybe half a foot. At full height, they were likely under five feet, though it was hard to tell in this lighting.

“I’m alive,” I said, more to myself than to the creature. Like speaking the words aloud would shape reality.

“Couldn’t tell ya either way, truth told. No one can tell you what you are, kid. Only you. If you say you’re alive, who am I to say otherways? Here’s what I’m more concerned with–You coming to supper or what?”

“I’m sorry?”

“No need for apologies?” They queried back, not quite mocking me.

“No, I mean, I–what?” Words were getting harder to come by, like my brain was catching up with the reality of my situation and was refusing to cooperate until sense had been made.

“Are you,” they said, pointing a long nail–claw?–at me, “joining me,” claw pointing back at themself, “for food, at a table, in my house?”

“Here?”

They looked around the squat room, and peered back at me through narrowed eyes.

“You joking on me?”

“I don’t think I am.”

“This isn’t my house! You think I live like this?” They spit a dismissive glob onto the dirt.

“I–I’m sorry.”

“Who made you think you always gotta proffer apologies, son?” They sighed, putting their beak into their palm. “I ain’t askin’ for sorries. Just wanna know how much grub to be preparing.”

Now that the subject of food had fully breached my thoughts, it occurred to me that my stomach was quite empty. I had skipped breakfast that morning, thinking I’d grab something from the Vendos at work. Shit food they spit out, but it got you through the day. In any case, however long I’d slept, it had been many hours since my last meal. If nothing else, the hunger pangs spoke to the validity of my claim to life. It would be foolish to turn down food in my position, surely.

“Yes,” I said, finally. “I would be happy to join you for supper.”

At my acquiescence, the figure clapped two wiry, clawed hands together. Their pipe hung loose from their beak, ringlets of smoke pooling into a cloud above their head. They drew deep from it then, the embers once more illuminating their golden irises. The reflection of the burning plant etched a revealing fire into their eyes, not unlike how a cleansing rain wicks away grime from concrete. In that micro-moment, any doubt I had about the creature seemed to wash away from my thoughts. I was filled instead with a certitude that they meant me no harm; that the hospitality they were exuding was no front. They were genuine. Whatever that meant down here. Whatever good it’d do me.

“Delighted!” They reached out a hand to me, offering help up. I took it without hesitation.

“Name’s Mono, kid. What’s yours, Sorry?”

“Arthur.”

“No joke? I got kin by that name!”

“That right?”

They opened their beak in a peculiar way, then. Judging by their eyes, bunched up and bright, I’d guess it was their way of smiling.

“Nah, I’m joking on ya. Would be mighty funny though, wouldn’t it?”

Mono let the silence hang for a moment, perhaps expecting me to laugh. They moved on admirably fast when I did not.

“Well let’s get to stepping, Arthur. Supper ain’t gonna cook itself.”

They rapped their knuckles against a part of the wall indistinguishable from the rest of the Dirtroom. The soil began to collapse in on itself, as though sucked in from behind by a large vacuum. This collapse continued until an exit large enough for Mono to pass through easily (and for me, not so easily) opened up. From within I could make out only a deep mauve glow, blurred at the edges. It hugged the wall, small pinkish wisps curling around the edges of the doorway like drumming fingers.

Mono stepped inside, leaving me alone. I hesitated, then. I mean, wouldn’t you? I had nowhere else to go, but we’re funny that way, humans are. The unknown frightens us, however irrational the circumstances for the fear. I stood at the threshold of wherever Mono was leading me, and gazed into the infinite possibility of what lay beyond. It was paralyzing.

“C’mon, sonny!” Mono’s voice came through the haze fuzzily, emanating as though from some ancient radio. “Kin’s gonna wanna meet you up before suppin’, and I’m starved as is.”

One foot in front of the other, I told myself. As easy as falling down.

I stepped through the door.