New folktale about myself

One morning when cleaning the floors, I discover a hole in the wood that looks like a fingermark in cake icing. I re-cover it with the rug and resolve to sand it down, but the hole has expanded and deepened a few days later. It's now possible for me to run two fingers through it. It's also soft around the edges and damp to the touch. I feel like I'm invading on something while I'm hunched over it on my knees, the embarrassment of seeing an animal give birth, so I cover it up again, ignore it for days, even deflect my gaze.

I'm not sure if I'm being a little foolish at first. My house does, in fact, have a lot of holes. Nuisance holes, as well as workable holes (shower drain, garbage disposal) (the one the doorknob punched in the wall; the one the mice came in through). All of the neighbors' conflicts can be heard via a hole in the kitchen ceiling. That one could be a little of both. None of them, however, has ever grown in size.

The next day, I can't handle it any longer and decide to leave. I get my dog into the car and drive to my mother's for the weekend. She loans me a swimsuit and points out some deer on the lawn. I eat my sister's cereal and try to float perfectly still on the pool's face for hours. My dog barks herself cross-eyed every time the microwave beeps. On Sunday night, I made the decision to stay until Monday. On Thursday, I pack the dog back into the car and return home at my mother's request.

The house has fermented on the inside. It has the beautiful rotten fragrance of old flowers. A heap of folded clothes and an open window, a peeled orange dry and withered on the tabletop are all indicators of my haste, my fear. What had I got to be afraid of? The TV is still turned on. Even in reflection, even as an exercise, it seems stupid now, the intensity of it inaccessible to me.

The dog is cautiously sniffing around the area. I snap my tongue and shoo her away, but the rug sags beneath her as she flees. I yank it up. A beautiful hole has worn clear through the floor, large enough for my hand to slide through. Inside, it's dark and cold, and I can hear the pipes hissing as I put my face down.

“Goodnight,” I say and put myself to bed with the dog.

We have all of the common dreams. The dog is chasing something and whines and pumps its legs. My teeth fall out into my nude lap while I'm taking a test. The dreams come to a satisfactory conclusion for us.

When I wake up, I see what I expect to see: a sliver of light rising from the floor, as if from a keyhole, in the semi-dark. I slither down to it, fix my gaze on it, twist my neck, and get down on all fours. It's a room that stretches in every way. Although there is light, there are no windows. There are no walls, yet there are windows. Whichever makes the least amount of sense.

Marching through the sourceless glow, big crowds collect and disperse, passing along at curious speeds. Someone looks up and waves to me. All I can do is blink. How big and bald and stupid my one eye must look, gawking down from up here. But they go on flowing, like schools of fish, and I, flat on my belly, watch, delighted.

When it happens, it doesn't come as a big surprise. Her face is raised and she is just below. She is, for the most part, me. My height and weight. My personal preference. Is it correct? Maybe it is. I'm not sure what to say. I'm not sure what I look like, and neither are you.

“I’m ready for you,” I say. “Are you ready to come up?”

When she reaches for my hand, I grab it and tug. Her shoulder is thumping against the underside of the flooring, and I can hear it. I clench my teeth. In my grip, her wrist turns white, and her face, my own, slowly emerges into the darkness of the room. She lets out a yelp as she falls to the ground. I move my slackening body away from her to feel an unexpected pleasure—a tremor—in secret, and not without shame, like the bird that beats its wings one final time after landing.

At first, it appears like she is allergic to something I'm wearing since half of her face comes out in a rash one afternoon while she naps on my shoulder. I toss out my sweater, but then I wonder if it's my scent or the detergent I'm using. I've decided to cease using them.

She's braiding my hair a few days later and keeps stopping to rub her eyes. “Are your eyes bothering you?” I inquire. No, she says with a shake of her head. But I have a sneaking suspicion she isn't telling the truth since she doesn't want to bother me, so I get anxious about the substances in my shampoo. Then it occurs to me that perhaps the issue is wool. Soap is another option. Fragrances in soaps, for example. As a result, I wear very little every day and only wash myself when necessary. I'm never sure if she's allergic to anything, but I'm content knowing that I made myself as destitute as possible for her in search of an explanation I never discovered.

Loud noises frighten her, and she circles closer when a car alarm goes off or the neighbors' conflicts reverberate through our kitchen like clanging heat. She once held me by the back of my shirt for hours while I moved around the house after a lengthy storm. And I let her go, pleased by the simplicity of her need. But there are times when I need her, and on those days, I slam the kitchen cabinets shut loudly and carelessly to lull her to sleep. At night, we sleep in perfect symmetry, face to face. We both look exactly like me when we're together.

However, as time passes, she has fewer things to say and asks fewer questions. On our walks, she leaves my bed and gets farther and further away from me. When I find her, she doesn't seem relieved, and she doesn't appear to have ever felt lost.

I bring home a whole salmon for dinner one night. It sits flat and still on the counter, looking far too alive for a corpse, as if it would reanimate at any minute. She fillets it for us, running her hands over the insides of it in search of the tiniest bones, which she removes with pliers one by one. I set the discarded head aside and run my finger down its teeth, which is pointless.

She beckons to me from the table while I'm cleaning up. She wants to know if she can feed a piece of fish to the dog. I approach her dish and say, "I'll scrape it into her bowl." I can see, though, that she wants to be the one. She desires to feed the dog with her own hands.

While I'm cleaning up, she beckons to me from the table. She wants to know if she can give the dog a piece of fish. "I'll scrape it into her bowl," I offer as I approach her plate. But it's clear that she wants to be the one. She has a strong urge to feed the dog herself.

I gradually lose my ability to recognize her. I'm thinking it's possible that I'm the one who's transformed both of us. But I don't believe so. She starts startling me all throughout the home. When her hand goes for the salt or to top off my coffee at the table, I see a stranger's hand and briefly consider stabbing it.

It everything comes to a close one day in the heat, at the park's outdoor market. She makes her way over to the fruit stand. I keep an eye on the top of her head, knowing that if I lose sight of her, I may never see her again. However, the light is really bright. The light reflects off the white plastic tents, the scales of the headless fish on the ice, and the ice itself. I'm sorry, but I can't help myself. My eyes had been stinging shut.

I sit on the bench for a long time, comb my hair, and wait. They eventually begin to dismantle the tents. As I walk back to my apartment, it strikes to me that she had most likely seen me sitting there, watching me. I picture her biting into an apple and discovering she isn't who I thought she was. Slowly turning the apple in her palm, she decided not to return.