the earth opened up beneath me like a giant's mouth, swallowing the floor whole. I grabbed a pipe on the way down, my legs dangling for a second, nothing but panic in my eyes, my bed falling past me, then the rush of gravity as I followed it down. spelunkers would likely follow in their typical slow rappel, careful into the hole like a cotton swab into an open scar, but they might never reach the bottom, with its house-sized machines layered in square plastic buttons and tape reels.
the night before, I went to the old revival dome to watch a film set in the Sahara desert: an epic with an intermission carving it in two. I bought a thirty-two ounce cola from the concession stand, loaded it with ice and stuck it with a straw. it lay panting in the arm rest as the lights dimmed. I could hear the ice breaking off like miniature glaciers into the dark when light hit the screen. dust motes floated around in the cone of light like sea monkeys and a few pot-bellied men with thick glasses coughed phlegm into the dark. the soundtrack warbled.
at intermission I left the cup behind and paced the lobby, fantasizing about when I might take the first sip. I stared at the inner marquee, thinking about computers from the 1960s with punch cards. someone flipped the lights on and off several times. we returned to our seats just as the entr'acte card burst onto the canvas, and I could hear the men around me exhaling loudly and their seats creaking and joints popping as they leaned back. Watery ripples ascended from every horizon as the camera moved in three hundred and sixty degrees.
the film was some languorous thing with badly-dubbed English: a slow caravan slashed through with sabers, anachronistic pistol fights and long, slow conversations in tents with extreme close-ups of painted eyes and moist, bearded lips. I haven't said much about it until now because it wasn't very memorable and the cup kept calling, calling, calling. at the two hour and forty-five minute mark, when the sandstorm and the lingering shot of the sun blasted the lens with blue and yellow flare, I brought the straw up to my face and closed my mouth over it and sucked.
lean young men in business casual stood on their heads in the lobby while others circled them, stopping for abstract circus strongman poses; others gazed into smartphones or shook hands endlessly. I met a pretty astrophysicist lingering on the edge of the group; we strolled awkwardly over a strip of cobblestone to the bar around the corner. she said she liked my jet black hair and my yellow tie. we pivoted on barstools and murmured, our eyes beginning to water. there aren't enough years to do what she wants to do, she pleads; I tell her I know, looking deep into her eyes: I know. we touch fingers on the curb and share an electric shock.
that night as I thought of her, the ground opened up. the physicists had all fallen apart underground, skeletons in tubes for miles, the rupture of sticky cryogenic liquid against bone, all powered-down workstations and blank monitors, roots dangling like worms, the skeletons embracing and possibly still hopeful. I got to my feet and dusted off my pajamas and the soundtrack warbled again in the dark and a bright cone hit the cave wall, from where I don't know, somewhere in the dark; amidst the confusion and sitar music the skeletons climbed each other's shoulders to the clattering of bone, and the twenty-foot tall Bedouin with the painted forehead, his face mottled by rock, conveys that time will run again in a different direction and we will reclaim what we have lost, as the skeletons lift each other up into the hole from where I have fallen, bleached and baring their teeth.
