The Whole
of the hole
For Mackenzie Davis' "Send Me Your Photo/Ekphrastic" Challenge (links below):
The ice on the lake is at least two feet thick. The temperature: twelve below zero. That’s Fahrenheit. Three o’clock in the afternoon. That’s going to be the high for the day. Fairly balmy compared to the past month & a half out here on the bay. The hole in the ice is fresh right over the deepest waters out here. Nothing has even begun crystalizing over the opening. Nor is there any steam rising from the surface.
And no one else is here.
No auger. No shelter. No bench or seat. No heater. No fishing gear. No bait cooler. Neither fisherman nor fisherwoman nor fisherchild.
The only tracks in last night’s snow are mine.
There’s no wind. Not even a breeze. The air is always moving out here, often violently, consistently brisk.
I stare at the hole blankly, puzzling over its existence.
There are tales, rarely spoken & only in hushed tones. Rumors of something in the ice, beneath the waters, hovering in the air. Neither fish nor fowl nor beast. Nothing fabled or shrouded in myth. Just... something.
It always begins like this, with a hole in the ice. And shadows of folk who never return, names & faces unremembered, simply lost beyond time or ice or waters or thinnest of space.
I pull my rig from the pack I’ve slid along behind me. A hole is a hole, story or not. Shouldn’t waste it. Just saves me the work of drilling one. Don’t bother setting up the shelter or the heater. Right now, I don’t even pull out my folding stool. Just attach the weights & lures, wondering what’s down there.
I drop the line into the water, straight down around ten feet. Then it drifts to the west just a bit. The current is still there. At least something is moving. Time still exists.
Which means the sun will set soon. I will want to set up the shelter & get the heater running. Temperature will fall at least twenty degrees tonight, possibly sixty or more if a front moves through, though I see no indication of anything approaching.
And yes, I can see for miles in every direction but south over the ice. It’s only three-quarters of a mile back to the shore & a little further to my cabin nestled among the trees. Another half mile to the makeshift tavern in our little community where my neighbors will soon be gathering. Heck, half of them are already there.
But tonight I want to be alone out here where no one has a right to be.
I drop the line another fifty feet & it settles back into the middle of the hole. Strange. It should continue to drift.
I have plenty of line with which to work. Another fifty, one hundred, two hundred, three….
Straight down.
Nothing.
Is there nothing down there at all?
The sun settles beyond the hills & trees to the southwest as the rod slips through my fingers, fingers which have not released their grip. It falls to the ice & slips into the waters as I watch through misting eyes. I don’t look around to see as the ice swallows up the pack with all my gear, settling back as though nothing had ever been there, last night’s snow no longer disturbed by my trail.
On the shore, in a cabin nestled just in among the trees, a light which had not been on just moments before goes off. The door opens to a grizzled figure heading toward a makeshift tavern with a story to tell.
A story of nothing.
.
.
.
Awww, c’mon Mac, you had to know I’d come up with something like this, lol!
About the Creator
Randy Wayne Jellison-Knock
Retired Ordained Elder in The United Methodist Church having served for a total of 30 years in Missouri, South Dakota & Kansas.
Born in Watertown, SD on 9/26/1959. Married to Sandra Jellison-Knock on 1/24/1986. One son, Keenan, deceased.
Keep reading
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I AM
This is not who I thought I would be. Before my family was captured and forced into slavery, I had aspirations of becoming a wealthy business owner or possibly a scholar and philosopher. Becoming a warrior was the furthest thing from my mind. Unfortunately, our Roman conquerors had other plans.
By Mark Gagnon4 days ago in Fiction
Comments (29)
I really like this - I love how ordinary things become ominous when they are out of context. Plus, the imagery is really sharp here; I can almost taste the cold.
A gripping tale! I'm adding this to my long list of reasons not to go ice fishing!
Ooof, this is so captivatingly descriptive and atmospheric. Beautifully done.
My Ken snow fishes. This pretty much completes my perception of what it would be like if I did it. That is high praise
Do you prefer Randy Wayne or Randy? I grew up in Minnesota and know from experience heavy lake ice, the bite of the wind and the experience of 20 below weather. Your wonderful writing brought it all back to me. I felt the sense of dread that you patiently built over the course of tale. The midwestern resistance to waste was a nice touch as well when your hero decided to fish in the hole. My wife and I lived in Kansas in ‘83 & ‘84. I always tell people that the Kansan plains are almost as cold as Minnesota in the winter and as hot as Texas in the summer. Great story!
This is what I would call TOTALLY immersive writing. Like you are there witnessing every nuance without the filter of words. And Randy, this is expert levels. Well crafted my friend!
So atmospheric.
I was sucked in like the ice got me. Nice work.
This was great, Randy! Disappearing without a trace into a bottomless icy void is definitely the stuff of nightmares.
Oh, damn, Randy! WRITE MORE HORROR! This is phenomenal. Suspenseful, atmospheric (frigid!), mysterious, and absolutely terrifying! I got similar vibes to Ashley Lima's story "The Longest Night" (https://vocal.media/horror/the-longest-night-er2740z9o) which is also a wintry horror story. I take it there's a kind of beast in the lake that emerges through ice fishing holes (and perhaps only when the temperature gets that low and only comes out at night). I feel like you took the idea of footprints disappearing in snow storms and made a horror monster out of it! "A story of nothing." THAT is awesome. A creature that erases evidence of people's existence, only to come in and replace them. It struck me that perhaps the MC is dying of hypothermia (since he really should have headed back home when the sun began to set, but chose not to), so the pole slips through his fingers even though he didn't technically lose his grip. But then, the ice eats up his pack and gear, which would NOT have happened naturally, lol. "Misting eyes" made me picture him turning into mist, full body, disappearing into the polar vortex. Oh, I literally felt chills when the light turned on. AH!🫣 This is AWESOME, Randy!!
This is so intense Randy. brilliantly built up. Your descriptions of lanscape are so beautiful ...maybe also an entry intot he snow challenge?
Felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, great vivid descriptions!
I loved this, felt the winter chills from the descriptions and it feels like it ends on a cliffhanger.
Dammit, what's down there! I GOTS TO KNOW!
This story left me trying to figure out what really happened. This felt like a tale that belonged on the Twilight Zone or the X-files. Great Job Randy
AHHHHH I'm not going to lie, but my favorite part is that you indicated that the degrees are in Fahrenheit xD I SEE YOU SEE MY CELSIUS-CANADIAN-ASS ahahahahaha
Great read... I'm with Heather... I was bracing myself in case it was a horror story... which I try to avoid!
Ooooo, that was good. I like the fact that the nothing was full of menacing something. Just hints and sprinkles of what possibly could be, and even though he caught nothing, the fisherman still goes to the pub afterwards to brag/storytell about the 'nothing', because he survived it. Really enjoyable to read. I was standing there going nuh ah, don't fish here; I got a bad feeling about this! Once again, outstanding work, Randy.
Good one Randy. You are lucky someone was left to tell the nothing tale. Hole could have gobbled everybody. You were asking for it.
Are you snow fishing???
Excellent.
Excellent development of detail and mystery. This one had me invested from start to finish. Great job as always, Randy!
This was sooooo suspenseful! I love the direction you went with this photo! I freaking loved it!
I think you scared all the fishies away. This was a 'hole' lot of fun Randy... in a most bizarre, yet concise way.
LOL, not gonna lie, I scrolled back up real quick as I got further along to see if this was under Horror! Great story, Randy :)