Someone trapped in a cave lets out a low hiss—and maybe it isn’t a cave, maybe it’s a hole in the great wide earth—the sound of their teeth hits against dirt or rock or something else immovable—but no thing is immovable over time, no matter—maybe an underground bunker or the inside of a waterfall—someone trapped claps their hands together and remembers the taste of a ripe tomato cut in thirds—eating is prohibited when the mouth is filling up on all sides—they might remember a road slicked tire or chewing on a hard candy, and the resulting crack—the turning of the inside to the out—maybe an oven, but probably not— or else they remember pushing a piano key down so hard they fell through it to the other side—it might not matter if the only sound they can hear forever is the wall of cavity—no entrance and no exit, not even enough for a reversal—they have no memory of becoming enclosed—and maybe they aren’t trapped, but hiding—the idea of a breeze idling once, blowing in an empty expanse—maybe bowed into a ball like yarn or a scream—biting down too hard—maybe the inside of a mouth, surrounded—something watching with dimensional superiority, says, hah—it might think the someone figures a way out—the only way for this to go is to go—but that’s not what happens—the sound and the hard edges made of world or rubber or tack—something could choose to cut the earth into thirds—someone runs a tongue over every surface, looking for a way out—or maybe sits curled and contented within their membrane fortress—something watching says, don’t say womb—says, that’s silly—and it might think someone, inside, could light a match—think maybe light could change this arc—but that’s not what happens—there is nothing to light and nothing to light it with—so little sound someone can hear their bones cracking and their blood pulsing—something watching says, blood—it might think dimensionally about the way the story is supposed to flip, or crunch, or swell—but that’s not what happens—someone is hidden inside, amorphous, and will never emerge—the only thing that changes is that someone else gives an account—and now you can imagine the sound of the hiss—
Meagan Arthur is a cross-genre writer from the Seattle area. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Puerto Del Sol, Quarter After Eight, Cream City Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Prose from the University of Washington, where she won the Grace Milliman Pollock Award, and she is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Utah, where she has been awarded the Vice Presidential Fellowship. She serves as the Senior Prose Editor of Quarterly West.