old quarry worn wall by the shaking of the earth
the machines that brought down the house and left
and the house was how old? we don’t know for we just placed it there, among the hedges overlooking serlidge pit
see that when we think a think we make it real
and real as it is the house fell down and bricks fell on the heads of miners and they had their lives done in
and safety checks at serlidge pit had the whole thing done in
so who knew what of the building that fell around them and its red door in the ground but the kids who play by serlidge hedge and pit
and what kid but the older ones goes and breaks a rusted lock with a brick? maybe one on their own even.
ah and the sound that comes from the grand round door the size of their body as it is freed of its chain. the sound of pleasure squeezing out from stone.
what hides underneath there?
i surely don’t know.
regis pit, pit of the king’s eyes and pit of the queen’s teeth.
regis pit.
before now and even before then the king would open in the ground a hole for people to go in.
and they would go there and never come back. and it is said that in the pit the people dug a city of tunnels. all throughout the country. until it was a shadow country, underneath, a convict’s haven in the dark.
it’s one idea.
sitting on the red door the teen who thinks about these things draws in chalk the labyrinth of tunnels that passes under the palaces and great houses of the world.
like hatching. like sitting there to create a reality. because god forbid nothing actually fantastic is waiting in the dark.
the other idea was worse. and it was nothing good or glimmering hope. that it was where a bad thing was sent. and to open the door on the bad thing. the hell pit of worms, might in fact kill the hedge and the pit and the town and the hills and the cities and all things around. that indeed the pit would be so grateful it would want to give the kid their wishes for it all to turn to mulch.
the seal on the underground being breached however, what begins to emerge but a hand, fingers five feet in length, oh dear.
and we run away. red mites clinging to our skirt.
GlitchOut 