The Crevice

The Crevice

never go in there
why
if you go in there    you never come out    ever
Fear fired through the boy, radiating out to the end of his limbs.  And it got there fast because it didn't have far to go since he was so small--only three years old. 
With trepidation, Augie and his brother--only one year older--peered into the crevice.  Augie sat on his haunches and his brother stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. 
It was dark and seemed so deep.  At the far end of the crevice was a void--a little bit of open space, barely lit with shrouded light. 
There it was--the place of no return.  It was so far away, the distance between life and death.  That was the place where if they went, they would never come out, or so their father had told the older brother.
In fear, they stared into the crevice for a while.  They knew not the words, but they knew the feeling--ominous, danger, doom.
It wasn't a thing that Augie dwelled upon.  With a three year old mind, his thoughts couldn't stay still long enough to dwell upon anything.  But for the next three days, every time he walked past the crevice and noticed it, he would remember and it would send chills through his body.  He would walk up to the edge and stare into the abyss.  He felt all the foreboding and all of the threat.
Then, on the third day, while Augie was once again staring into the narrow opening, something within him urged him to go.
It was stupid!
It was crazy!
Why?!  Why would he do it?!
But he did it, though he knew not why.  It was as if something other than his self was pushing him on.
With one foot he stepped onto the lower horizontal 2x4 board of a picket fence, reached up and grabbed the upper horizontal 2x4 then pulled up his other foot.  Now standing on the lower board, he reached up higher to the top of the vertical boards, grabbed hold of them and pulled himself up until he stood with his tiny feet on the upper horizontal board. 
It wasn't your typical Huckleberry Finn, 'white picket fence' with their spacious gaps between vertical boards.  Between these boards there was barely a gap, certainly not enough to see through.  And painted 'battleship grey,' it was more like one large, solid wall that towered over the small boy.
Standing on the top 2x4, Augie leaned forward and with his hands he grabbed hold of the top of the vertical boards.  He then side-stepped, edging closer and closer toward the opening of the crevice where the fence met the brick wall. 
When he reached the edge of the crevice, he stopped for one final moment, like standing at the edge of a precipice, contemplating whether or not he should leap.
But leap he did and he entered into the crevice.
As he crept deeper and deeper into the narrow crack, his fear increased. 
When he reached halfway to the end, something told him that there was now no turning back. 
As he neared the end, a feeling within him grew that he would never make it out alive.
Finally he reached the void--that small, enclosed area of open space.  Looking down, he could see that it was filled with sand, like a little slice of sandy beach.
He leaped off the fence and landed in the soft sand.  For a time he just stood there, frozen.

im never getting out

Then, looking down,

whats that      so many legs      so skinny

It was a centipede--the first Augie had ever seen.  It slithered as it walked, all of its legs moving in a ripple, like a finger being dragged across piano keys.  Curiosity diverted his attention and so for a time he forgot his fear.
When Augie finally looked about and viewed the area in which he stood, no longer did it seem so fearful.  It was almost familiar, not so much different from any other part of the building, although darker, a bit damper and with a little more moss on the brick walls. 
No longer was the 'terrible place of no return' really so terrifying.  But the question in Augie's mind still remained,

can i get out

if got in    i can get out

He climbed back onto of the horizontal boards as before, and then side-stepped his way toward where he had come. 
The closer he edged back to the entrance of the crevice, the more he felt a soothing relief float down like sheets and settle upon him.
Finally he was beyond the end of the brick wall.
He leaped down and when his feet hit the ground, he felt a tremendous joy flood throughout him like a deluge.
Victory!  Mountain Top!  Triumph!
Exhilaration!  Ecstasy!  Euphoria!
Again, he knew not the words and so he did not appreciate the concepts.  He just knew the feeling of 'joy!'--a joy in its most basic and pure form.  If it could be summed up in a word, it would be a simple, emphatic, "Yes!" 

After it all, Augie simply walked inside his home.  He never told anyone what he had done.  And he never thought about it again until he was much, much older.

But what really were the crevice and the void?

Augie and his family lived in a turn-of-the-century six-flat, three stories tall, made of brick and stone.  The floor plan of the building was rectangular, except for a narrowing along the middle of both sides that formed a shape like a woman's waist.  Looking from the rear, there stood a grey wooden fence that ran along the left wall, set only a couple of inches away.  That formed the crevice and the 'waist' of the building formed the little void of open space and light.  What made for all the eeriness was the tall row-house next door that stole away the light like the canopy of a dark Bavarian forest.

So, the 'place of terror' wasn't so terrifying after all.  But it didn't matter what it really was.  What mattered was what Augie thought it was.

It's strange how some things can seem so big when we're so small. 
Then one day you realize that those big fearful things aren't really anything at all.
The trick is not to be so small.