My Own Private Oubliette

Have you ever felt like you’ve fallen into a hole?  Like you’re clinging to the side of a cliff, at the point where the prospect of climbing back up to the top is too daunting but you can’t see the bottom and you’re too scared to let go?  

 I’m in that hole right now, talking to you from my niche in the wall, a temporary foothold that will let go at any moment.  It might be difficult to hear me.  You may have to lean in and cup your ear.  But be careful.  Don’t fall in.  I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and if I can’t save myself, I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.

Like Alice, I was trying to avoid the mundane tedium of the everyday.  I wandered off and fell in.  But mine is no rabbit hole.  Its walls are not lined with clocks and cupboards.  There is no Wonderland at the bottom.

Truth be told, there is no bottom.  It just keeps going and going.  Its walls are lined with sharp roots and slimy fungus.  The more desperately I try to claw toward salvation the dirtier and more battered I become.

Why do I carry on this mad clawing?  It would be so much easier to cross my arms and feet and fall down into the abyss that I know will claim me in the end.  But I know someone will keep me from falling.  They will keep me from falling but won’t pull me out.  And now I’m past the point of seeking succor ~ I fend off the helping hands.  I long for the oubliette that is waiting for me.  Maybe that is what this hole is; maybe I’m in it now.

I don’t want a lifeline.  Sometimes I long to hear my own death rattle; in my morbid little musings, it is a comforting sound.  What I really want is for the people trying to pull me up to come to the same realization as me: that it is a silly venture – inane and futile.  What is waiting at the top?  My hole is dark, but it is warm.  Analogous to that of Jack the Bear, the invisible man.  His hole was bright, but he was invisible.  Mine is dark but I must be conspicuous down here because people won’t let me have any peace.

What I want is for someone to help me – but not help me out.  Help me overcome this senseless, innate need to fight my way up.  Help me tie my hands and feet together.

So I can go sailing down

Into the sadness

Into the sleep

Into the quiet

Into the deep.

But I can’t ask anyone to do that.  And no one would volunteer.  I haven’t the courage to dig in and climb up or to fold my arms and fall down.  I’m stuck here, clinging to the side of this hole.  An oubliette I’ve built for myself; teetering in a purgatory I’ve created.