“This has evolved so much. This was the first chapter from my first novel, which I completed, then binned. Then my second novel became intertwined with the first. This is the first chapter.”

Artwork by Matt Priso - Instagram @ sik_abyss

It was the shape of Australia, the stain on the rug, the spot of wine it was, or blood perhaps, and a royal purple scented oil drop that resembled Tasmania. Carl dragged the rug towards the sinkhole. Backwards he slowly shuffled, before touching the barricade with the heel of his leather Gucchis. He paused, released his grasp on the rug and rubbed his palm into his back, massaging the vertebrae where his disc was bulging. He had rolled the cream luxury hand knotted rug and tied it together with three strips of fraying beige twine so that it could be gnawed at more easily. The stain of mainland Australia had seeped through to the underside. He lifted it up onto its end, and then he tipped it over the six foot cage, it toppled over, and it landed with a dull thud. The sun had long since dipped below the top of the hill, and Carl was alone, and it was cold and windy. He climbed over the barricade that separated the people of Valley Ridge from its famous sinkhole. Carl pushed the rug with his foot to the edge of the sinkhole. The sinkhole opened in 1976 as a small hole behind the Loews Theatre, and a basketball could not fit into it. Over the next few decades, it grew slowly but steady, and as he stared into its depths that evening, an olympic swimming pool could be dropped into its opening. The last researcher to abseil down it, measured its depth at 170 metres, which made it the largest sinkhole on earth, outdoing the Cave of Swallows in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The soil erosion around the surface, and the dissolution of the limestone and salt bed was not the result of circulating groundwater like most other sinkholes. An absence of igneous rock and magma confirmed that the sinkhole was not the result of underground volcanic activity, and no tectonic shifts were ever reported, which made it possible that the sinkhole was an unnatural opening - not an act of God. The centre will unfold. The rug would unfold, and the rats in the depths of the sinkhole would gnaw at what he had wrapped inside that rug. Are we empathetic or pathetic Carl would often say to himself? To possess empathy for others. To understand and share their emotions. Middle French pathetique, to the late Latin patheticus. The ascription of his human traits turned to inanimate nature. Back to the Greek pathettikos, to be capable of feeling. From capable of feeling, and empathetic, to the miserably inadequate, the pitiful and the sad. Empathetic and pathetic. He rubbed the bandage on his thumb with his other thumb. It was stitched from knuckle to knuckle. He was sure the doctor had left a piece of glass inside it somewhere, just to remind him.

Becky, this is your astonishing parting gift.”

He gave the rug one last push with his foot, and it was out of sight. He could not hear it land. He rubbed the bandage again.

Have another drink why don’t you?

"You are traipsing mud all over the place, Becky said."

"They are spotless." Carl raised one foot and slapped the sole of his Guccis. "See!" He replied.

"What’s this then?" Becky knelt on the rug and picked up a speck of dry dirt and threw it at Carl like she was throwing a dart. "How many times Carl. Can you get your dirty shoes off the rug.”

"They are spotless," He repeated. "You expect me to jump over this ridiculous fluffy looking thing."

"I want you to have a little respect for once. For me, if not for my things. It is an expensive rug. And why do you have mud on your Guccis anyway?”

“They are spotless.”

“Where have you been Carl?”

“I replanted the tomatoes. They were getting too much sun where they were. We spoke about this. I guess I got a little muddy.”

“Carl, I replanted them this morning while you were slaving away in the office.”

“I can hear the sarcasm in your voice Beck.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing. I have not a thing to hide. Can’t a man walk through a paddock or dig a hole without the inquisition. Besides, You could have dragged the dirt inside yourself."

"I wouldn’t do such a thing. I have respect for things. For possessions. For you."

"No, no. You are perfect Beck. Just perfect. Never made a mess at all. Never ruined a thing. What about the floor in the kitchen?”

"What about it? I didn’t cause the fridge to leak."

"No, no. But you did nothing about it. And then look what happened. You could have halted its progress."

"Why is it always up to me? I do everything around here."

"I pay for it all. Your fancy clothes and all the mangos, and the wine, and your addiction to Sandalwood products. All the oils and the stupid candles. What about all the wine Beck?”

"Oh go away Carl, and take the ghost of your mother with you.”

"Don't you speak about her with that tone."

“It’s sentimental, and you know it. And now look at it. It’s all muddy.”

“It’s a bit of dirt. It’ll come off.”

“Where have you been Carl? You haven’t given me one plausible explanation for this.”

“What if I said I was praying down by the sinkhole.”

“You don’t have one religious bone in your body.”

“I was praying for you, for our baby, for your mother. While mine whispered in my ear.”

“You are sick, and leave my mother out of this. We are talking about your lack of respect for me. And I want to know the truth Carl. Were you with Mallary again?

"Oh come on Becky. Don’t you go there, and you hated your mother just as much as you hated your sister."

"Don't you dare, you lying scumbag.”

"Or what!" You can speak about my dead mother but I can't speak of yours? What are you going to do? Throw another mango at me while my back is turned.”

“It won’t be a mango.”

Becky picked up a Sandalwood candle and hurled it.

"You missed, and will you just stop throwing items at me so that we can discuss this matter in civil terms.”

“Civil terms! You are lying to me and I know it. Who were you fucking Carl? I can smell Mallary Boedecker all over you.”

“I swear to God Beck, this is just a situation that you are blowing out of proportion. It’s just a little mud.”

Becky picked up a hand made Huon Pine box containing burning oils and threw it, hitting Carl in the chest. The hinges of the box snapped backwards, splitting the lid, and the oil bottles dropped onto the rug in tact.

“Jesus Beck, did your mother teach you how to throw? You might just be as crazy as her.”

"You are an unbelievable arsehole," she screamed as she picked up a glass from the counter that was half full with 1995 Valley Ridge Pino Noir. A light, bright wine and ruby-red in color. It has a light body, with a thin delicate spine, mostly barnyard and forest floor in flavour, and a mid-palette with notes of cranberry and pomegranate, finishing with hints of cola and liquorice. The glass and its contents were airborne before he knew it.

Carl shrugged his shoulders, raised his arms and stomped on a bottle of rosemary scented oil and dragged his shoe across the rug.

"Have another drink why don’t you, burn another candle for all I care. Dab some oil under your nose. That was an expensive drop of red too.”

The blood and wine dripped from his hand. He went into shock, and then the pain hit.

From his Valley Ridge residence on an autumn day, Carl Wesley Phillips had a dilemma. Becky was long gone. Have another drink why don’t you were his last words to her.

Becky, believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see. We are born with two eyes that see things differently, yet converge into one seamless imaginary tale. And now, I can see that on my death bed, I will help clench her fists.

The finer things were becoming cloudier. The small details. He pressed his spine into the couch and wrenched it sideways, hearing it crack in two places near his L3. After the sinkhole appeared behind the cinema, Valley Ridge had a wound that could not heal. Valley Ridge was a place to dream and to forget. Valley Ridge was the only place Carl had lived in his life where he could simultaneously function and disintegrate. The Dreamers: the unofficial moniker for the Valley Ridge Bears. Thanks to the captain of the Cedar Pines Loggers, Benny Woodley, The Dreamers stuck after Charles VanDerbelt hit the upright, ricocheting back into play as time ran out in the 2010 Championship Game. The loggers winning 23-21, their third consecutive Championship victory over The Bears/The Dreamers.

"You choked VanDerbelt. You are nothing but Valley Ridge Dreamers."

FRANK CALL INCOMING.

Carl's knee jolted to the left, and struck the leg of the coffee table, which tipped the beer he was drinking off the edge. He caught the bottle mid air, yet the froth still poured over onto the gray slate where the cream luxury hand knot rug once was. He stuffed the bottle into his mouth, and let the froth erupt onto his tongue, before swallowing the lot, as the contents began to go flat. He raised his Gucci and rested it over the puddle of beer, manoeuvring his foot until the beer was out of sight.

“Real poor timing Frank, I was about to make a very important phone call,” He replied.

“Maybe it’s time to call it a day then, you know that only fools rush in!” Frank replied.

“Frank, are you drunk already?

"Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not."

"Seriously, don't worry about it, something will come up."

"yeah, well, it has been close to a month, and not one contract, and it's all your fault."

"I am not my father Frank. His business is his business."

"I know, I know. Next you'll tell me that it wasn't personal. He can go to hell."

"Look, Frank. I can't get into this right now. I have to call the Village Cinema about my pillow. I’m flustered. Can you send me their number. I'm shaking like a leaf."

“The Village, what! What do you mean, your pillow?”

“My custom lumbar pillow, I left it there yesterday. I got up in a bit of a rush before the credits started. I left it there in plain sight. It’s the type of thing that people pick up and take home.”

“What did you see?” Frank asked.

“Don’t ask,” Carl replied.

“But, I just did.”

“It’s just not really worth discussing, but since you insist, it seems that I have misplaced my lumbar pillow because of Black Water.

“Is that the one with Dolph? It looks alright.”

“It was okay, JUST! Van Damme is in it too. It wasn't that bad you know. Decent pace. Pasha Patriki's directorial debut, and I must say, he did a good job. Those actors can not be easy to direct, I tell you. With their history together. Their masculinity. It must be intimidating."

"Yes, but they are also very experienced and Pasha could of course lean into that. He is the cinematographer isn't he?"

"That's him, the Canadian. He did Gridlocked a few years ago."

"Of course. I liked what he did there, he won a Canadian cinematographer award for that. He has talent, and I am glad that he has made the jump. Where were you seated?”

“In the IMAX I was, and it was loud. To the left of the centre aisle, row D, seat number twelve, just below the speaker beam that gives off that nice warm wave of heat.”

“I know the spot. I can call Lottie if you’d like. She is about to see a one thirty session in cinema two with her sister. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind asking the ushers to check lost property for you."

“What is Lottie seeing?”

" A Quiet Place."

“Ah, really. I have not heard great things about it, and I think I will give its theatrical run a miss. I’ll wait for it to hit video stores. Is she going with Beck?”

“You know what we agreed. It’s better you don’t know what she is up to, and no, Lottie is with Jeannie.”

“I know, it’s been tough though, you know. Don’t ask Lottie though, I don't want her to think that she owes me a favour."

"Don't be stupid. She is doing her very best as well. You can’t blame her for any of this.”

“At some point, someone has to take a side. We can’t keep this charade up forever.”

“There is no charade. Just let sleeping dogs lie.”

"Let sleeping dogs lie ha. Just like you and Herm. Do you get what I am saying. I don't interfere.”

"But you are holding a grudge against Lottie."

"It's the finer details. She has known me longer. Where is the trust there? Dismantling a friendship group. Dividing us all because of a bit of dirt on a rug. Does that sound like a sane person. Is that someone Lottie should be congregating with anyway. Do you want to be married to someone that congregates with a loony? It'll rub off on you Frank, like a fine piece of mud dries and ends up on a rug, and one thing leads to another from there. Sandalwood starts getting hurled about. You should see how my thumb is healing, I swear the thing is infected. It's a monstrosity. And as for you and my father. Again, finer details Frank. A clause in a pest control contract that you failed to notice."

For Carl, honesty was depraving Valley Ridge of its worth. Honesty can lead the gullible astray. Honest men win the battle, but lose the war. Frank Atali was an honest man. Lying was winning the war. Honest men experience dreams. For Carl, it was the nightmares where the truth could be found. Honest men never use the word reap. Honest men are never what they sow. Honest men do not run with fury. To belong is to be needed, and to need is to lack some order. And in order to belong there must be a void, a sinkhole or a wasteland. Walk the walk rather than talk the talk. Empathetic or pathetic, empathetic or pathetic. Carl liked to watch things die on film. Frank Atali was an honest working man. Frank was a pest control contractor that his father, Herm Phillips, used to build his empire. Herm had a talent for making a fortune out of a community's problem. Carl watched him hold his mother's hand for hours every day while she slept, medicated heavily on Morphine. It took her two months to die once she went into that ward on the second floor of the Valley Ridge General Hospital. Two months Herm sat with her, held her hand and bathed her in bed. While Carl read to her, Herm brushed her bald scalp because it was the only place above her flat chest where she could feel sensation. Herm held her arm, guiding her to the window every day so that she could either look across the road and watch handcuffed perpetrators being led from vehicles into the Police station or watch kids scale the sinkhole barricade and drop rocks into it. The drama made her smile and sometimes giggle like a child. Rosetta Falzone was her maiden name, and her sense of humour is still with her, and with Carl, whispering in his ear when he needed counsel. The day after Rosetta was buried, Herm created a company that contracted carers to sit with dying patients that did not have any family. The General Hospital could not staff the nurses or orderlies to perform such a role. Herm saw a gap and filled it. He sold HP Sitters for $875,000. Herm used $500,000 of those funds to invest in Beatsy Barricades and Scaffolding. The sinkhole was growing and so was the barricade. Herm and Lincoln Beatsy met with Valley Touring when the sinkhole was 5 metres in diameter and gained approval from the local government to erect a walkway made out of scaffolding across the sinkhole. Sinkhole Sights made $2,750,000 within 3 years until the edge of the sinkhole became too unstable. 2.5 years into the company's tenure, Herm sold his share for more than a third of its current and future 5 year projected earnings. Herm had seen it coming. The rats were breeding from the sinkhole. The government were in panic mode. Disease was the last thing that Valley Ridge needed as its own land was swallowing itself. Herm saw it coming. From meeting an independent Valley Ridge contractor named Frank Atali at the inaugural Pesticon Conference. Herm built The Herm Pest Eradication Service, the largest eradication business in the Southern Hemisphere. HPES focused on dated methods rather than the modern popular humane ones such as trap setting. Herm and Frank attended Dale Crow's lecture, Sustainability in an Otherwise Compromised Society.

"What did you think of that waffle?" Frank sucked on a cigarette and exhaled into the crisp Ohio air.

"By waffle, I guess you mean you are off the fence regarding his indifference to poison?"

Frank nodded, dropped his cigarette on the ground and stood on it.

"I'm here just for the catering. But look, for as long as agriculture has been around, and as far back as three thousand bc, in Egypt you know. Cats were used to control pests in grain stores. The industry of pest control has always been the answer to common problems. Even the Sumerians used sulphur compounds as insecticides, through to the spread of the potato beetle, and now people like Dale Crow are making a living out of scaremongering."

"Herm Phillips," he held out his hand to Frank. Three of Frank’s knuckles cracked as Herm squeezed his hand. Herm had short plump fingers. He was strong. They were hardened hands, having grown up in the logging town of Cedar Pines, sixty miles North of Valley Ridge. He played sport on gravel ovals. He climbed trees and he was cutting them down before he learned to read.

"Frank Atali, nice to meet you. I guess it depends on what you want to exterminate though. Some of what Dale Crow said has merit. In my experience, I have found that different chemical compounds to have different markers on Arthropods."

"I'm not all that familiar with some of the industry terms."

“Arthropods, Arachnids and insects. Not industry terms. It's just what they are. And then mammals, well that's where I think that poison has its true value. It gets really interesting.”

"I'm just finding my way at the moment I suppose. I did find the data on Thallium insightful."

"Thallium. Don't get me started on Thallium."

"Atali. Not a Cedar Pines Atali are you? Nikoli Atali a relative."

"Niki is my old man. Was my old man."

"He was a good man was Niki. I didn't know him well, but I knew his name around town."

"The Pesticide Act killed him it did. They took down his entire fleet of aircraft. The industry went the way of environmentally sound mounted tractor sprayers, which was a costly solution. He couldn't exactly sell a fleet of aircraft modified to destroy army worms, hessian flies, stink bugs and grasshoppers. He lost the war he did.”

Niki Atali was cremated at the Cedar Pines Nektars Funeral Home. Two days before the cremation, Mollie Nektars handed Frank a fact sheet. Several things to consider when scattering someone’s ashes: remember to gain permission from the master of the vessel if spreading them at sea; consider that a park or a recreational ground may one day turn into an apartment block; watch the wind direction, and always wear gloves.

"I’m sorry for your loss Frank.”

“Oh that was years ago Herm, but I tell you what! I still have his ashes under my fingernails. The poor bastard.”

“Excuse me, come again.”

Frank lit another cigarette and exhaled. A bell rang, indicating that the mid-morning coffee break was wrapping up.

“Dale Crow is on again after lunch. I think I will skip it. I have heard just about enough about sustainability. People die. Things must be exterminated. Niki didn’t suffer, and I’m grateful for that. They commonly refer to them as your loved one’s ashes, but really, they are burned in a way that all body matter evaporates. Niki evaporated. His blood, skin, and the eyeballs, poof! and all that is left at the end of it all is bone fragments with the consistency of sand more than that of ash. The kind you think of when you burn a log. So, I ignored the fact sheet that Mollie gave me, and did not wear gloves.”

“I have never thought of it like that. Everyone I have lost, has been buried."

“That’s not all. So when a 30 centimetre Chinook appeared from beneath that fucking statue of Earhart, and splashed a fan of spray onto my hands as I upturned the urn, the ash stuck to my hands like wet sand does.”

Frank handed Herm is business card and the rest was history.

Thallium:

A compound without colour; without a smell and without a taste is a particularly dangerous substance. Thallium can actually be found in the atmosphere, within manufacturing industries, and trace amounts can be found in smoke, as well as the earth itself. Though when larger amounts are digested into the human body, or inhaled, even absorbed through the skin, then Thallium poisoning can occur. Once a popular ingredient in rat and insect poisons, it has since been blacklisted. But still used as a black market poison, common in some very public and famous murders. Within two days, symptoms mirror food poisoning, with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. However, after a week, the nervous system is attacked, severe pain, seizures, weight loss right through to psychosis and dementia like symptoms are common. After three weeks, hair loss begins, and the heart begins to degenerate, ultimately stopping within a month.

"Point taken. I'll let it drop it with Herm as long as you try and bury the hatchet with Lottie. It's not her fault that this happened."

"I'll bury the hatchet for sure."

"Funny Carl. Speaking of ushers and things, did you hear that they let go of the Landry kid?” Frank asked.

“The claqueur,” Carl replied.

“Yeah, a real shame. It seems the sinkhole is putting a dent in their bottom line, and an election puts a good cinema on edge you know."

"I don't believe that for one second. A good cinema will survive no matter what arts funding is splashed around, and no matter how big a nearby sinkhole becomes. But, as for the young Landry kid. I feel for him. He had a booming clap. You watch it diminish now that he can’t use it. It’s called atrophy."

"The art of the claqueur is a forgotten art form you know, most claps you hear at musicals or award ceremonies are warm, respectful and muffled. The Landry kid really did light up a dull matinée. Regulars knew it was him, but those that were more passive in the experience really joined in on the applause, even if the scene didn’t warrant it,” Frank said.

“Listen Frank, I’m in a bind here. I’m flustered and my back is aching.”

"It's always aching Carl, just bite the bullet and get the fusion."

"I need that pillow Frank, can you just ask Lottie then. I'll bury the hatchet with her."

"Consider it done my friend. Just don't expect me to share a beer with Herm at Christmas. I'll be civil, but that's where things end."

"Let bygones be bygones Frank, and I'll do the same with Lottie if she can retrieve my pillow before it's too late."

“Okay, okay Carl, but what I am calling about is just as important as your back pillow.”

“What can be more important than a custom made genuine merino wool stuffed lumbar pillow?”

“Carl, that letter you said you wrote to Becky.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Were you drunk when you sent it?

“No, not at all. I had my faculties. I was drunk when I wrote it though.”

“Well, it arrived.”

“As it should. A letter goes from A to B if the postal service do their job. What did Lottie tell you? Is Becky mulling it all over?”

“Carl, you sent her a postal voting slip. Vote one, Rebecca Whitlock with love hearts all over it. And little arrows through them.”

Carl’s heart sank into the part of the chest where it feels like it was being swallowed. He traced his actions back to the morning he wrote the letter. What have I done?

“Carl, are you there. I’m coming over.”