The hole

There's a hole, right at the centre of her. A big black hole, sucking in everything good, never full, always hungry.

Well that sounds really bad. That's the kind of statement that requires a flame thrower and no mercy. When Doc Holliday poses this theory about Johnny Ringo in Tombstone, the psychopathic cowboy, we shiver and nod grimly. 

"A man like Ringo got a great empty hole through the middle of him."

It is clear now that the hero will have to shoot him, both for his own survival and the good of the nation.

She has a black hole right at the centre of her. She doesn't know this. She's been walking around it every day for the last three decades without seeing it. She's wondered why she forgets things (her degree show, that event she organised, the time she ran a marathon and jumped off a waterfall). Moments of bravery, achievement and pride gone like loose change and teaspoons. She's even suspected that there's something a bit suspicious about this endless misplacing. But parts of her have worked really hard, for a really long time to disguise this hole. Wouldn't you? Nobody wants to be Ringo. Who wants their inner landscape to have a hole in it? Holes are sinister, lude, people fall into them (Touching the Void), monsters use them as access points (The Descent). Worse is a hole that is doing things on its own. Having a hole inside you that quietly and deliberately lifts all of your good memories and steals them? That's intent, that's a plan. What could the hole want with these memories? Is it eating them? Hoarding? Sewing them together into a perverse outfit (Silence of the Lambs)? Whatever it is, it's not good.

She can still remember the good things, but they are faded, easily forgotten, slipping out of her grasp. Like shadows of themselves.

Her brain made the call a long time ago that the best thing to do about this hole is hide it behind a large pile of stuff, deceptions, rules and fences while the brain tries out different methods to fill it in.

What's the alternative? The brain imagines her trying to style it out in front of other people.

"Hi! My inner landscape is a modern Google style campus imaginarium producing video games and big ideas!"

"Mine is a museum with all the wonders of the world that I've seen on my travels carefully catalogued."

"Mine is a shadowy black hole that sucks in all light and joy!"

That's the kind of thing that gets you banned from your local meetup group forever. No, of course the brain is hiding it. 

She has no idea that this is happening.

As far as a solution goes, the brain is working on some pretty sound logic. If there's a hole that can only take in good memories, surely if there are enough good memories, the hole will eventually be filled. Then the brain will be able to reopen this part of the grounds again, having replaced the embarrassing and frightening hole with a flowerbed or ornamental pond.

So, in order to achieve this result, the brain needs to bring in good memories, a lot of them. Achievements, victories, awards, social, financial, academic, physical and creative.

Unfortunately, she's not generating these fast enough. This hole isn't going to fill itself! So the brain starts creating incentives, beliefs that will motivate her to strive harder. 

You're not trying hard enough. 

If you don't push harder it will be too late. 

People like winners.

She works harder. She tries to draw on memories to remind herself that she is a winner, she is achieving things. Unfortunately all the memories are going into the hole, leaving her with only faint shadows. This makes her feel like she has actually achieved nothing up until now. What has she been doing? She's so lazy.

Shame slips in.

The brain notices shame, but it's actually a really effective tool. It stops her looking around in her own mind, makes her keep her head down and work harder.

The brain realises that this might not be the best plant to grow but it's all for a good cause, right? Soon the hole will be filled and then they can uproot the shame.

The hole takes in all of her achievements. It shows no signs of filling. The brain gets desperate. It creates new rules. 

It's only good enough if you get that promotion. 

You need to publish it though. 

Real adults live in a nicer place than this. 

When she achieves these things, and the brain sees that the hole is still there, it moves the goal posts, desperate. 

Oh but you should have that job 

You should be this happy in this relationship

You have to try harder

Eventually parts of the brain get dispirited. The project is not working. They take it out on her. 

"You aren't good enough," it says. "If you were good enough...well. Never you mind." 

It imagines an ornamental pond where the hole used to be. 

While this is going on, she has been working her ass off for years with zero congratulations. For some reason her brain always looks vaguely disappointed and stressed when she hits another milestone. She doesn't know why this is because she still doesn't know about the hole. 

At some point, when the new rule comes in about her not being good enough, she learns how to detach. It has been obvious for a while that this is a game she cannot win. So instead she finds ways to distance herself from it. She watches all of The Wire. She discovers a corner of the internet where people argue ferociously about the meaning behind Danielewski novels. She eats comfort food and watches fox videos on Instagram.

A new part of her brain notices that she is doing this, instead of making progress in her relationships or her work and dedicates itself to trying to fix the problem that is "too many fox videos."

She is now certain that her biggest problem is her tendency to distract herself with videos on the internet instead of studying.

She believes that if she could fix this one thing, everything would be okay. She does not know about the hole. She is no longer really aware of the parts of her brain that are telling her that she needs to try harder and that she is not any good. A hole leads to a set of rules that lead to an endless stream of avoidance activities. Her brain is full of slightly stressful foxes. They never go into the hole. They're really loud.

So what is the answer?

1. Get Doc Holliday to shoot her. He's the only one who can draw fast enough and she has to be put down before she kills again.

This seems unnecessary. In the reality where no one wears spurs or spits tobacco, the hole does not appear to have turned her into a psychopath.

2. It feels like she should know about the hole though.

This is a good idea. Most of her problems have arisen not from the hole, but from her brain's cack handed attempts to deal with the problem.

The brain protests loudly.

"Don't tell her about the hole! She will be devastated. It's a terrible thing to learn about yourself. Leave it with us, we are maybe days away from solving it."

The thing is, the brain has been saying that it's days away from filling the hole for more than thirty years. It's plausible that the brain has not "got this" and a new approach is warranted.

The argument that knowledge of the hole will make her unhappy is a moot point. She's unhappy now.

So you unveil the hole. She looks at it, uncomprehending for several hours.

"Well fuck," she says. "That explains a lot."

If anything she sounds a bit relieved.

"Hey," she says, moving a bit closer to the edge.

The hole doesn't say anything. It's just a hole.

The thing is, up close like this it is fair to say that it's a scary looking hole. The surface is completely circular, and as dark as a sensory deprivation tank painted by Anish Kapoor in a power cut.

It's dark.

As she watches, this writing disappears into it with a silent jerk that looks like the sound "whoosh." It does not disturb the surface of the hole at all. It's just gone. 

"Well that is sinister as all hell," she says. It is.

The rest of her brain is a busy collection of machinery made out of copper, marbles and wheels. There are plants growing over the pistons, and owls nesting in the scaffolding. There's a boating lake with a complicated set of messenger pedalos and a library. And of course, internet foxes everywhere. The hole is an unsightly, sinister eyesore on the green and brass scenery.

So what the hell is she supposed to do about it?

1. Continue hiding it behind a crumbling wall of shame, demanding beliefs and wisteria. 

This has not made even a tiny dent in the amount of positive memories that keep getting sucked into it over the last thirty years. She is unhappy. She is unwell. No, this strategy is not working.

2. Pave over the hole.

This is pretty much the same solution as one, seeing as the concrete would have to be mixed out of the same bad rules, shame and ivy that she used for the wall.

The brain chips in.

"If we try to seal the gap, it eats the concrete."

Well that sounds just horrible.

3. Build a bridge over it. A pretty arch bridge with a fancy filigree railing and brass dragons at the end.

This sounds delightful but it doesn't solve the problem of all her positive memories falling into the hole. She needs to start having access to these memories again.

4. Go into the hole.

No, this is terrifying. Surely nothing good can come of this. What happens to people who climb into mysterious black holes in their own minds? 

They cease to exist as soon as they pass below the surface

They fall a short way, cannot get back out and die slowly

They fall a really long way and die, quickly 

They fall forever

They transform into some kind of horrible monster

Monsters are waiting below the surface. They are eaten

The hole IS a monster. They are eaten.

Clearly monsters feature heavily here

She doesn't want to do it. Every fibre of her being is telling her that going into the hole is a bad idea.

So she just sort of sits with the hole for a while. Her brain hates this. It has a really specific mandate about the hole, which she is ruining by openly looking at it over and over again. Also, there are still foxes everywhere. Looking at the hole has not suddenly solved all of her problems. She is still procrastinating and the brain is still trying to tell her that she needs to try harder.

"I hate that everything is still covered in foxes," it grumbles.

She shrugs. She was sort of hoping that finding the hole would have changed something, but that hasn't happened yet.

The hole does not become more or less mysterious over time. It is unknowable. Its surface refusing to reflect anything, the sky, her face peering over it. It is neither liquid or solid or shadow, neither translucent or reflective.

One thing that is really obvious to her is that this hole isn't going anywhere. It's not going to be filled in, or disappear. It's part of her.

"Yes, but it's not a good part," the brain mutters. "We had to try."

She sits with that for a while.

Her brain tries to create some new inspirational messaging to get her to stop looking at it.

She is wasting her time

There are things she should be doing

She will not get well if she does not go back to researching and focusing on her symptoms

Real adults achieve things, they work and learn and make progress. Why isn't she working on something instead of sitting here?

Sometimes this makes her leave the hole for a while. But she keeps coming back to it. It's starting to seem less frightening than it did. It's also not an eyesore. It's dramatic and strange. It's part of her.

When she is not looking at it, she does things she likes. Writing something she's proud of or making a card for a friend. Achieving something at work. Supporting her partner through a crisis. Walking the dog. Learning something new about moths. Trying out a new recipe. All of it ends up in the hole. 

It's becoming really obvious to her that she is going to need to go in after all of this stuff, and find out what is on the other side.

This is where she is, poised, hovering.

I have tried to imagine what she might find inside the hole. 

Of course, the bad answers are possible.

Destruction is a real thing inside the brain. She has forgotten more things than she knows. The hole could be a kind of acid pit as featured in any respectable villain's lair that removes things from the world with a sizzle. If she's honest, she doesn't think that the hole will annihilate her, but she is afraid that it will hurt, or that she will get vertigo that never leaves, as she falls and falls.

That's a risk and she can't find an answer to it. 

Except that sometimes, now, she feels like her heart is racing and that she is falling. Sometimes it hurts. 

The other possibility is, basically, monsters. The hole either turns her into something horrible or releases something horrible, all much of a muchness when you get right down to it. What if the hole is a necessary canal lock, keeping all the bad things on one side? If she breaches the surface, all the worst parts of her will be running around loose in her head, chewing on the machinery and messing up her life. If the price for keeping all that ugliness locked down is the flavour in a bunch of good memories, surely that's cheap at the price?

"Yes," says her brain.

"No," she thinks, surprising herself. If bits of her are ugly and weird, preferring to cackle in corners and (metaphorically) chase cats up trees, then so be it. Keeping those bits locked away is costing her too much. Let her be what she is. Let her be Ringo or the bad kind of gremlin. The gremlins look like they're getting a kick out of life. Isn't it about time she was too?

But there are other possibilities.

What if when she jumps into the hole, darkness gives way to stars?

Not endless falling but open space, stretching endlessly outward?

Absolute and yet inhabited with lights? What would it mean to have such infinite space inside of her?

What if the hole is not a void but a gateway, to somewhere else in her mind that she's never been? Unimaginable, curious, a next level?

What if the hole is just what it says on the tin. A hole with a bottom that she can lightly jump into and climb out of again?

At the bottom, everything she has lost. Drawings, speeches, leaps of faith. Moments of bravado, silliness, romance. Endurance and adventure. Keys, charms, prizes and tokens. 

In this and every one of these possibilities, nothing is truly lost. It is just waiting, floating in space, or sitting on a mountain path, or at the bottom of a hole, waiting for her to jump in and find it. Everything that she has allowed herself to lose touch with that makes her such an astonishing, fiercely weird and wonderful person.

She sits at the edge of the hole, crouched, leaning. It is the exact look she gets on her face before she does something impulsive and maybe crazy. She hasn't gotten that look on her face in a long time. It's kind of beautiful. 

Her brain, defeated, is crashed out next to her, the pages of its thirty year crisis management plan blowing away in the breeze, missing the hole completely and getting caught in trees and pounced on by foxes.

"I'm afraid of it," the brain finally admits in a whisper.

"I know," she says.

And then...