Hole

The truth is you're a prawn, vacant-eyed, unblinking behind a PC, bobbing in the sea like a plastic champagne cork after it's been popped and discarded. The most useless of all the animals and yet so tasty when floating in your Friday night curry, the highlight of your miserable week. To make things worse the morning is gruesome and you crashed the car last night. Usually you're cruising into work in your mid range silver saloon with heated seats slowly warming your plump buttocks.

Walking to the bus stop, wet leaves stick to your shoes and the hems of your trousers. Water seeps in slowly climbing up your ankles, creeping towards your knees. You're transfixed, as you walk you are reading a pizza leaflet you found on your mat. American hot: pepperoni, green peppers onions and green chillies. Covering the ground like a lush velvet carpet in a sleazy bedsit the spicy purple-red leaves are heaped in fat seductive piles by the edge of the pavement. There was a time when you would've attacked those leaves, sending them flying off on every direction, laughing and kicking. Now you're in a bitter mood, tried from the five minute walk, feet aching and you're still a good hour away from work, being bullied by school boys for an hour on the bus.

It happened when you were picking up your son from the station. He thinks we don't know what he's up to but it's so obvious. He spends every afternoon until the early hours on the internet looking at questionable material and talking to American women trying to persuade them, using his highly under-developed linguistic skills, into taking off their clothes. Meat Feast: Ham Spicy Beef, Pepperoni, Spicy Pork and Bacon. Surprisingly, none have taken the bait so far, if he could actually talk one round then maybe he could come work with his old man. They're probably all men anyway.

So, when he finally gets an interview he, half-smartly dressed, is one whole hour late and they refuse to see him and so back he comes, cheesed off at them, and immediately phones from the station wanting a lift home because it was raining. Chinese Chicken: Chinese chicken, mushrooms, sweetcorn and green pepper. To be fair it was pouring down and squinting through the sheets of water you tried to spot him at the crowded station and smashed into the car in front. It was only a year old, an infant, it was your pride and joy.

Nobody listen to you at work, but they will. You're ideas are brain popping, you think. You're like a sleek panther waiting, ready to attack. Soon you'll have the deputy site manager job in the bag. You're ideas are great, you fantastic sex monkey. You're a gigantic virile monkey, no, a thick strutting stag, standing proud and erect. Getting carried away you remember your breathing techniques your doctor told you, after your heart-attack scare. Breath in - hold - breath out. Add an extra topping for 50p. He also recommended a brisk walk for half an hour every day; this could be the first time you've managed since you saw him. Striding, proudly/ stupidly down the street when you hear a sudden, soft crack and then your right leg begins to fall, closely followed by the rest of your body.

You scrape your right side down the rough surface of the hole and land gracelessly and tangled. As you lay in the wet and dark you blink trying to compute what has just happened. The sides of the hole are sharp with jagged stones jutting out of the uneven surface and have cut your arm and leg. Your leg is twisted behind you and you carefully bring it back around, like when you take off your belt and your lower internal organs slowly revolve back into their rightful positions. Standing up, you can see the dim light of the street and you reach up, stretching your arms out to their full extension and there is still another two foot until the mouth of the hole. You're going to be late for work.

A little panicked, you start to jump, little jumps on the spot reaching for the edge, mushing the white bread of your cheese and pickle sandwich into the dark mud, which spilled out of your empty briefcase. The walls crumble as you try and climb them. Your clean nails, soft hands and weak wrists are soiled brown with mud and slate and blood. You take a minute to catch your breath and curse your overweight frame. As the failed attempts of escape mount up you begin to hate your fat. Fat and useless, a big fat fucking blob.

Snivel.

Your annoyance slowly turns to anger and you begin to shout, your deep lungs boom out:
'HELLO!?'

'I'VE FALLEN DOWN THIS HOLE!'

'CAN SOMEONE HELP ME?'

'IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE!?'

Your throat gets a little sore so you stop. You get a disembowelling feeling that nobody is going to come and rescue you. Suddenly, an idea hatches in your head and spreads across your brain like a thousand tiny spider babies. Yanking off your tie, you fashion a lasso, you're thinking maybe you can grab something and hey presto! Freedom. Your tie flaps limply at the mouth of the hole and as you pull it downwards it falls into a pile on top of your head. After a few more failed attempts you decide that it is useless and that you are useless, a useless chubby lummox.

Inside every child stamps the heart of an occasional lunatic. You once were a little boy in shorts, a boy scout with seven merit badges. A boy who could hardly contain himself when taking part in a marathon hiding session, alone in a cardboard box, except for his maniacal love for cardboard boxes.

"Windsor safari park You say out loud. "Windsor. Safari. Park you repeat staring up in the darkness. Why are you thinking of that all of a sudden? Windsor Safari Park, a safari park with big animal, lions, giraffes in Windsor, Berkshire.

Lewis Smallon is driving at a snails pace, his lovely wife sat next to him and his son in the back seat.

"Get the manual from my bag will you" He says to his wife trying to get his chunky car phone to work. "No, not that bag Corina, the green one!" Looking round at his son, who had been quietly reading Treasure Island, he says:
"I haven't paid for us to get in for you to have your nose in a book. Were here to have fun and see animals, and that's what were gonna... Cutting him off mid sentence a Monkey leaps from a nearby tree onto the bonnet of Lewis's Merc.

"If he's dented it I'll rip his nuts off"

"Oh look Boo, a monkey Mum says.
Its begins to scratch itself. Mum pulls a face. Moving toward the front of the bonnet it strokes the badge of Lewis's Merc. Lewis beeps the horn in frustration and the monkey coolly looked up into his eyes.

"Sod this" Lewis says getting out of the car with an A-Z to shoo him away and that's when the attack happened. Disappearing out of sight, Lewis is knocked off his feet by the monkey. Another two monkeys land with a thump onto roof and climb down. Lewis begins to scream and so does your mum, who was clumsily winding her window up. Opening the door you slowly peered out. Two monkeys were holding your dad's arms down scratching at his wrists, which are now bloody and raw. Another smaller, greasier monkey is at his hip riffling through his pockets.

It was odd your dad was always very strict about snacking between meals. You could swear, fight, fart, break or kill and he wouldn't mind but eating after two and before six was an atrocious crime. It was odd because a monkey was now chomping on a chocolate bar, biting straight through the wrapper. A chocolate bar pulled from your dad's trousers. The big monkey slaps him on the back of head and he screeches dropping the snickers into the dirt.

A ping of excitement, an idea fizzes across your brain like an Alka-Seltzer. Yanking off your belt you step out of the car throw one end onto the ground. Wiggling it on the ground like a snake the monkeys call in alarm and jump away. Leaping up your dad pushes past you and jumps into the car slamming the door after him. The three monkeys stop, looking around and begin to understand the ruse then they dart towards you. You turn and head back for the car, your mum and dad screaming at you to get back into the car. Your dad winds down the back window with a stern face which has regained its composure. You dive in through onto the back seat as the angry ape takes a swipe for you, smashing his fist on the car door.

"Let's get out of here Your dad says putting his foot down.

You're a bench, a monopurpose lump in a park. Behind a man picks pages from a porn mag form the bushes, and fold them up with a quiet sadness. You are more than content with the ten minute free view on the adult channel. It's a years to the day since you and your wife had sex. Perhaps it's a good thing you're stuck down this hole. You do, however, have a natural affinity with tv remotes. At Bill and Jacky's dinner party a few months back, while they were getting drinks you were checking out their new tv. In two presses you already have a good rapport, finding the key buttons and changing with fluency after only a short time.

You look up into the street and begin to cry for help again but this time your cries are answered. Two pairs of little eyes peep over the top of the hole and blink.

"Oh thank god. Hi boys, could you go and get someone to help me out.

Blink. Nothing.

"Are your mums or dads about? I've got to go to work.

Blink.

"I'll be late; I'm already late as it.

"Look, I've got a very important meeting!

"Kids! Get me out of here right now; you're going to be in a lot of trouble.

"I'm really getting angry now.

"GET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING HOLE RIGHT NOW

"IM WARNING YOU!

Giggling the boys duck away from the hole. You can here the rustling of their feet as they run trough the leaves laughing and kicking.

"HEY WAIT! COME BACK. Please."

"COME BACK RIGHT NOW OR ILL..."

You'll what. Your fucked, you realise they could just leave you there to die. You scrabble desperately up the wall and fall back, agonisingly scraping and twisting your left leg up behind you. You land on your back and onto something cold and metallic. As you fumble in the darkness your fingers find the object and lift above your head into the light. It is a tiny shovel. And there is another under your other leg, two tiny shovels.

As you quietly stare upwards befuddled, shovel held aloft, the two boys come back and start to cover over the hole with long thin sticks making a lattice work and the then covering that with leaves leaving you alone with the dank gloom.