All in All

All in All

I look down at my hands, worn, rough, and forever browned by the unrelenting exposure to the sun. I've had a hand in building many of the newer buildings here in the revitalized South Loop area of Chicago. Though the company I work for designs and builds condos and office buildings, the men who work on my crew claim that they "shovel shit" for a living and that they'll be "shoveling shit" for the rest of their days. Perhaps as a foreman, my outlook is a bit brighter, but certainly not by much. My name is Charlie Close, and I'd been a laborer for 22 years at this point in my life. That was not my initial plan when first I moved to Chicago from Lubbock, Texas as a young man. My dream was to be a writer of fiction. I wanted to write it all: westerns, mysteries, science fiction, romance. I wanted to produce a ground breaking novel in every genre I attempted and I had the notion that my natural talents would allow me to do just that. I had no use for college, but after a couple of years of part time jobs and full time writing with nothing published, I was forced into working with my hands on a full time basis in order to pay the rent for my studio appartment in Hyde Park in a timely manner.
The amount I actually wrote upon embarking on this career was almost nonexistent. It was far too much to think up an intruiging plot after working for ten hours welding girders, or carting around floor boards, or putting in installation. I drank heavily in those early days of labor until my life was saved by my wife Holly. Upon meeting her, the empty hole in my soul from lack of writing was immediately filled. She became my reason for living and I set about working with a far more ambitious attititude. We'd been happily married for 15 years at this point. We had enjoyed a very nice June together during this particular summer. The main reason for this being that our son Pat had spent the last four weeks in summer camp. He was 10 years old at this point and he was loved by Holly more than anything in the world. I didn't mind. However if I were to tell you that at this point in my life that I loved my son more than anything on Earth I'd be lying through my teeth. Don't get me wrong, I did love Pat, mainly because I made him and I had to love him to an extent. But I could never help but think that if Pat and I were classmates instead of father and son that I would kick his ass every chance I got.
Pat was an odd kid without question. Very tall and pale, skinny as a rail, with a voice that seemed too high pitched and feminine for a boy his age. He got picked on in school by kids much shorter than him and spent most of his time at home reading comic books, science fiction novels, and creating games in which he played alone, that usually involved dragons and wizards and robots. Holly and I usually saw him only at dinner time, during which he wore a hooded sweat shirt that he called his "cloak of divine darkness" which granted him transparency so long as he had his hood up. Obviously I could still see him plain as day but Holly asked that I play along. "He'll grow out of it." She'd say. I was less inclined to want to wait for this to happen than she was. Needless to say, I'd sent him off to summer camp in the hopes that he could get some sun, play some physical games with other boys and maybe make some new friends. I forbade him to take his cloak. It would have been far too hot to wear it and I didn't want him over heating or something like that. Upon his return home, he immediately put his cloak on and spoke with Holly and I even less than before. I had no idea what he did at camp and he was not going to be quick to share his stories.
I went to work one day late that summer and had what I imagine was a pretty unremarkable day. I had dismissed my crew and was walking around the site making notes on our progress and trying to determine how much we needed to accomplish on the following day. We were nearing completion of a new condo and while I had worried that we were running behind schedule due to the heavy rains we'd experienced that summer, I was gaining confidence that we'd effectively made up for lost time. I was about to take the freight elevator down to street level and head home for the night when I noticed something strange in the corner of the room near a window that had just been put in. It was a small hole emitting a very faint light. At first I thought it was in the wall, but upon further inspection, realized that this hole was suspended freely in mid air about six feet off the ground. Nothing in front or behind it, the source of light emmanating from within was a mystery to me. Picture if you will, an opening no larger in width than a pencil. A pencil! That was the ticket! I was carrying one in my pocket. I thought to find out something about this mystery hole and a pencil seemed to be a safe object to prod it with. After all, it would not conduct electricity. I examined the hole closely, I could not see anything within it other than the dim light which seemed to go on forever. I touched the hole with the end of the pencil and nothing in particular happened. I felt no shock or resistance. I pushed the pencil further in and pulled it back out again. It seemed totally unaffected for the experience. Finally, I pushed the pencil in all the way and it was lost. The hole seemed somewhat wider in circumference now. If it were at all smaller than a pencil before, it certainly wasn't now. I was perplexed by the entire thing. I decided that I must be working too hard and needed some sleep in a bad way. I returned home, trying not to think about the oddity I was just witness to.
Of course it was difficult not to think about something fantastic. I had trouble sleeping that night. I arrived at work that morning eager to continue my experimental interactions with this phenomenon. Upon arrival, I found that I was not the first person there. A few of my men arrived earlier than usual because "the orange line actually wasn't running like a piece of shit" that morning. I told them that I had found something that I wanted them to see up on the 14th floor. When we reached the spot that the hole had been I found, to my astonishment, that the hole had vanished! I had to pretend that I'd forgotten what I wanted to show everyone, which made me look a bit odd, but nevertheless, we carried on with our work that day as usual. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised or disappointed. Afterall, I had nearly convinced myself that I was merely seeing things the night before. Why should I feel let down that an illusion turned out to be simply that; an illusion. After another long day of work, I sent everyone on their way and was doing my usual walk around the site when I decided to go back to that same spot. That room was finished at this point and there was really no reason to go back, but my curiosity was overwhelming. I had to check it out. Of course, there it was, in the same spot that I had left it the night before. The light was slightly brighter and the width was the size of a silver dollar. Why had it not been there that morning? Perhaps the hole was only visable during the evening and night time hours. I would have to schedule some later work hours just to see if this theory proved correct. Before leaving, I decided to continue to tinker with my new discovery. I searched for another object to place into the hole. I returned with a chisel and had little difficulty pushing it into the void. The hole was now even wider than it had been before. I was about to leave when a new development occured. Something was being pushed through the hole from the other side! It was cylindrical in shape and was slightly wider than the chisel. The object dropped to the floor upon completing its journey. I picked it up and found that it was a can of soup, a brand I had never heard of. Auntie Alice's Homemade Soups. This particular can was chicken and noodle.
Over the next few nights, I passed different things through the hole. My hard hat, a dictionary, a lunch pail. Sometimes, something would be pushed through from the other side. A can of paint, a deck of cards, a jug of drinking water, all brands that were unknown to me. One of the more curious objects which passed through was a white paneled, autographed football. The name on the ball was not a player I had ever heard of: Mohammed McCoy. Perhaps an Irish-Muslim? There was no way of knowing. I scheduled some night shifts among my crew and found excuses to get them to go into this room on the 14th floor so they could see this hole. However, no one ever saw it. It never appeared unless I was there alone. Perhaps I was indeed losing my mind. But how could this be? I saved every object that had come through the hole and kept them in the trunk of my car. I had some hard evidence of my experience so I must have been seeing something that truly was there. Why it made itself known only to me was anybody's guess. Its size was much larger than it had been originally as well. Now the opening into the light-filled void was the size of a manhole.
I'd finally had enough. I told Holly one night about the experience I'd had with the mysterious hole. Needless to say, she thought that I had truly been suffering from a lack of sleep. I insisted that my story was in fact a true one. I showed her the objects from the hole that I had in my car trunk but she was unimpressed. Why should a can of soup or an autographed football come across as cosmic to anyone? I should have left well enough alone, but my unrelenting insistence that this event was happening in my life seemed to leave her annoyed and not just a little frightened that her husband was beginning to come unravelled. She went off to bed that night while I remained awake on the living room sofa. I had finally reached a point where I just could not sleep. I wanted to spend my time with the hole and try to discover things about it. This was a mystery that I had to solve. I felt as though some mysterious cosmic force had chosen me to embark on this task and that there was something important about humanity that I was destined to discover. Who could I confide in about this matter that would believe me, or at least have some sort of understanding about things unnatural. Perhaps I could do some research and see if there were any scientists in the city or at the local universities that studied space physics of some kind. Maybe this was one of those black holes from space that I'd heard about, or perhaps it had something to do with anti-matter. These were not my fields of expertise. As I wrestled with these thoughts, a high, slightly feminine voice rang out from behind me.
"I heard what you were talking about earlier." It was Pat. I thought he was sound asleep by this late hour.
"Why aren't you in bed?" I said.
"I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about the hole you were talking about with mom." he replied.
"She didn't seem very impressed by my story did she?"
"No. Can I see the stuff in your car.? The stuff the hole gave you?"
We went out to the garage. Pat examined all of the objects quite closely. He was very interested in the mysterious brands and labels on the objects. We talked about the hole and what it looked like, the fact that I was the only one who could see it, and the things that I had put into it. He believed every word of it. Even though he was only ten years old and prone to a fascination with fantasy, it felt so relieving to finally have someone to talk to about what I'd been going through the past week. I don't think there was ever a point in my life when I felt closer to my son. As a result of the way his odd little mind worked, he had plenty of ideas about what might be occurring.
"Maybe it's a time portal of some kind." he suggested
"I don't know pal. Why wouldn't time travelers have come in that case? Seems like if someone opened one, they'd be inclined to want to use it." I said.
"Okay, so maybe it's a doorway to some sort of parallel dimension?"
"I don't believe in parallel dimensions."
"Why not?"
"I don't know. I just don't."
"Maybe it's some sort of matter manipulator. You put things in and it changes them and spits them back out as something else." he mused.
"Who knows? It's more than I can figure right now." I answered.
"Can I see it?"
"No one else has been able too."
"I want to try and see it. Can I go with you to work tomorrow?"
The next day was Saturday. I agreed that he could come, since he wouldn't be missing any school. Truth be told, I had no work scheduled for Saturday, but since I finally had something I could talk to my son about, I wanted to spur it on, encourage it, and enjoy it. Holly knew what we were up to but she did not object. Perhaps now that the father had gone a little crazy he could connect with his son. She didn't want to interfere with our bonding. Pat and I reached the work site at about six o'clock that evening. Dusk was about two hours away. I wasn't sure if it would matter or not; we were the only people in the building. We took the elevator up to the 14th floor and entered the room with the mystic hole. There is was! Large as life, or at least as large as a manhole still!
"Can you see it?" I asked after a moment.
"Yes." replied Pat.
He approached the hole cautiously. I warned him not to get too close. It didn't seem necessary. Pat was a self-made expert in the realm of fantastic things. He carried himself like a true master of his craft. He closely examined the hole from every angle. He was eagerly searching for the solution to this mystery with a fever that I couldn't even muster.
"Can we put something in it?" he asked.
"I suppose so." I said.
He searched for an object to throw in before settling on a small coin pouch he'd brought along. There was no money in it he said. He mainly used it to carry his mystic items that he used to fight off monsters in his imaginary world. Nothing came back out of the hole at this point so I asked Pat if he wanted to leave for a bit to go get some ice cream at the diner next door. He did not. He wanted to stay and examine it some more. I was weary of the idea of leaving him alone, but ultimately decided that the hole was harmless enough if a safe distance was maintained.
"Keep your distance." I said. "Don't touch it. I don't want you falling in there."
"I will." he promised. "I just want to be here if it spits anything back out."
"What kind of ice cream would you like?"
"Just vanilla."
"I'll be right back."
I went next door and purchased the ice cream without wasting any time. My haste had nothing to do with worry about Pat at the time but had much more to do with how much fun I was having. A father and a son experiencing the joy of doing something together was something that I had not experienced in a long time. I just didn't quite get him. I never really understood him and as a result, I separated myself from him and forgot about the fact that he was really a pretty good kid. Maybe we'd be able to get along better as a result of this experience, where ever it led us. I got back in the elevator and began the electronic climb upward. I heard Pat screaming by the time the elevator had reached the 10th floor. My heart sank. What had he done? I'd told him not to go anywhere near that thing! What could have happened while I had been gone?
I rushed out of the elevator and down the hall and entered the room once again. My eyes immediately looked upon the hole. There was something coming out of it but it appeared to be stuck. I couldn't quite tell what it was but it looked very fleshy and sinewy. I my eyes frantically scanned the room for Pat. I found him huddled up against the wall in the corner of the room. He had his hood covering his head for his perceived protection gained by being transparent. His eyes were glued to the hole. I ran over and crouched beside him, putting my arms around him. The thing coming out of the hole was making progress. It was now further out of the hole. I heard the sounds of flesh tearing and bones snapping. The sound the creature was making was indescribable. Somewhere in between a snarl and a shriek. It was blood curdling. It was ear splitting. I noticed that some liquid that looked like blood, was dripping off of the creature and onto the floor. Pat clutched my hand as tightly as he could. After what weemed like an eternity, the thing dropped unceremoniously to the floor. The hole closed up behind it and vanished into nothingness.
Pat and I stood over the creature, a heaping mass of what appeared to be torn muscle tissue and flesh. Bones were sticking out of it in all different directions. Somewhere among the heap was a single eye, which stared up at us. Although it would have been impossible to tell one way or the other, the emotion held within the eye seemed to be one of great sadness. Pat noticed that clutched within a fold of flesh, was the coin pouch he'd tossed into the hole. He removed it despite my warnings and opened it up and peered inside.
"What's in there?" I asked.
"Nothing." he replied, as tears welled up in his eyes.
"Let's clean up this mess and go home."
I put on some work gloves and placed the twisted creature in a large trash bag. Pat sat outside in the hallway without speaking a word. I cleaned up the blood thoroughly and Pat and I left to return home. After dropping him off at the house, I took the creature out to a field and burned it. I felt it would be better this way than to try and explain what had happened to anyone else. Pat and I never spoke a word about the events of that night ever again. He spoke less than ever before. I was heartbroken by his intensified silence. I turned to alcohol again, much to the ire of Holly. As a result, our marriage suffered greatly over the next few years and she finally left me, taking Pat with her. They moved off to a small farm town in central Illinois where Pat could attend a smaller high school. From what I understood, he was a bit more social out there. He never attended college, in large part because Holly wasn't making very much money and I was of little help. I lost my job and struggled to make timely child support payments, much less have a means of helping Pat go to college. That's a regret that I have struggled to live with for all of my days. He and I talk every now and then, but we still have never discussed the hole or the terrifying event of that fateful night. I felt that it was better to allow him to bring it up in due time if the occasion ever arose.
Many times I've contemplated bringing it to the attention of someone, anyone, as the long years have passed. One time arose when I noticed a can of Auntie Alice's Homemade Soups on the shelf at a local grocery store. Upon researching the company, I discovered that they had began their distribution of this particular brand 23 years after the day I first received my can. Another time arose when I was at a sports bar drinking my life away as per usual when I saw an NFL highlight film showcasing the talents of a dynamic all-pro by the name of Mohammed McCoy. As it turned out, he was a black man. So much for my original guess. I studied his career a bit but was somewhat surprised to realize that he was not even born when I first acquired the football with his autograph. This discovery came 27 years after the week of the hole.
My financial situtation was reaching a dire point. I was now 65 years old and could no longer find work as easily as I could as a younger man. My health was failing and I was pretty sure I had something seriously wrong with my liver as a result of a steady diet of cheap whiskey. I was came home last week to find an eviction notice taped onto the door of my small studio apartment. I felt a sense of powerlessness. I was sick to my stomach. I rushed to my filthy bathroom to vomit when I noticed that in the shower, about four feet up, suspended in midair, was a small hole emitting a very familiar faint light. I began crying for I felt that knew what my fate was to be. I sat on the toilet and stared into the hole, waiting for what I knew must be coming. Sure enough, minutes later, a pencil was pushed through the hole. It landed unceremoniously on the shower floor. I stared at it for the longest time and began to laugh. At first, a small chuckle to myself, which gradually grew to a fanatical guffaw. I immediately went to the nearest public library and began digging through the archives looking for the only thing that I felt would solve all of my life's problems; but more on that later.
Over the course of that week, I didn't stray far from the hole. I couldn't remember exactly when it would happen but I knew that soon, a chisel would follow the pencil. Sure enough, there it came, with little difficulty, through the void. I caught it before it could strike the floor. I knew what I must do next. I went to my closet and took down a box from the top shelf. The box that contained all of the objects that I had acquired all those years ago. I took out the can of Auntie Alice's Homemade Soups and pushed it through from my end. Over the next few nights, objects predictably came through the hole. A hardhat, a dictionary, a lunch pail. I followed suit and returned the can of paint, the deck of cards, the jug of drinking water, and the autographed football. Finally all that was left was to wait for the night when the coin pouch would most certainly come through.
I dosed off that night, sitting on my toilet when I was awakened by the coin pouch which was flung out through the hole and struck me in the chest. I began to cry again for a knew that this was what my life had been building to. It's not a sad day for me. I've been shoveling shit my whole life and now I've finally found a way to give it a hope to have meaning. I know what I have to do. I wrote all of this down for you Pat. I've placed this enitre transcript, folded neatly into the pouch so that you may be able to read it so long as the hands of fate don't steal it away as I make my journey. I am sharing with you not only my experiences, but a little bit of knowledge obtained during my expedition to the library's newspaper archives. I now am about to fling myself wholeheartedly into the void. I am so sorry for how things turned out in this lifetime and I realize that I've made so many mistakes both before and after you were born. I only hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me of my weaknesses and that your life will turn out better as a result. Tell your mother that I love her and remember Pat, I love you very dearly. Also, your mega millions numbers this Tuesday are 4, 9, 14, 29, 42. Your gold mega ball is 35.