[TONE: Observant]

Deep. An endless forever kind of deep. It rejected light and sound. No-one remembered when or how it was found. It just was. I blamed the current government. Located at the dead end of just about everywhere, everyone had visited the hole in the ground at least once. I knew of a woman that visited it everyday after her divorce and laughed into the empty space. 

The sun had set on my life long ago. I slept standing, in uniforms and conversations. Existed in the same way a discarded Dr Pepper Can exists. Just there. Just waiting to be replaced with Coke. 

The evidence locker. The forget-about-it hole. The place where the lost things go. It had many names and many purposes. I had found myself there. Amongst its many daily visitors. Joined one of the miles-long queues and waited. Ahead was a man with bags of dead-batteries. Ahead of him someone pushed a shopping-cart full of expired food. Behind me was a woman holding an urn. Behind her was someone with a box of hard-drives. Everyone had their reason to be there. Things always found a way of getting ‘lost’ here. 

Hours passed and in my queue I had reached its side of the rim. I watched the man throw the shopping-cart in its entirety into the hole. Heard him sigh with relief. 

We all shuffled forward a bit. 

The moment had come. 

Reached deep into my coat and took out the large industrial garbage-bag and shook it open. I placed it onto the dirt ground and stepped inside. Pulled the two cords to close the bag around me. Surrounded by darkness I waited to hear the batteries-guy too sigh with relief with what he had now ‘lost’ inside the hole. 

Three large hops brought my feet peaking over the edge. I repeated the last words my father had said to me before he left to collect his Amazon order “If you ever find an endless hole in the ground, that’s where you’ll find my love for you.”

I leant forward and fell in. 

I love you Dad.