Vampiric Afternoon
Maya de Lioncourt

	It was just a round hole, into which little slaps of water fell with the rhythm of the lake’s 
little waves.  A round hole in the water where no hole should be.  Maybe if I fell into it I could 
fall through the earth and land in Tokyo and there would be magic.
	Well, there was the hole.  There had to be magic.  Holes shouldn’t be in the water, they should 
be in concrete or pottery or the dirt or trees.  If I fell into the hole, where would I end up?  A 
paradox land like the rabbit hole or the looking glass?  Please God let it not be so.  Please Lord let 
the magic be better than that.
	I walked through the leaves on the sand.  Dead brown leaves like everywhere.  Leaves are leaves 
are leaves are leaves are leaves are leaves are leaves.  But on sand it’s weird.  Trees over the 
beach, shedding leaves.  Weird.  Beaches should just be sand and ugly shell bits and grass on the dunes 
and cigarette butts.  No trees.  No big deciduous trees, no oaks and maples dropping their brown leaves 
on the sand people thought was an ashtray.
	The leaves made a funny sound, crunchy and rustling at the same time like they were being ground up 
and poured through an hourglass along with hourglass sand.  A time sound.
	The hole remained.  A hole in the water.  Just big enough to step into and fall down.  Maybe I 
would land in a funky computer world and have to fight big evil robots.  Maybe I would end up wearing a 
sailor outfit and waving a pretty wand, chasing petty villains.  Maybe I would fall down and land at 
the bottom of the lake and starve to death, beating on the water walls with the bones of the other 
dreamy idiots who had gone before me.
	Maybe I could walk on water.  Why not?
	I took a step away from the ever-crunching leaves and onto the surface of the water.  I took 
another step on it, then another.  I wasn’t walking on water at all, I was walking on a big piece of 
sheet over a hard wooden floor and somebody was just waving the sheet around so it looked like little 
waves.  People should always walk on the water.  It wasn’t any big trick.
	I kept walking on the water.  My feet weren’t wet, but they shed little bits of the leaves they’d 
crunched.  I left a path of leaf-crumbs.
	I looked over the edge of the hole.  It was dark.  It didn’t look magic.  It just looked dark and 
funky.  Do the funky lady.  Dude looks like a lady is the real line, I think.  Aerosmith.  Shaper of 
air?  Aquasmith.  Shaper of water.  Making a hole.  If I fell into the hole, would I get to see the sky 
again?  The sky hurts, but like wings in your chest, beating to get out.  Shouldn’t the sky hurt your 
eyes?  Eyes see, but your heart just beats.  Well, it could keep beating in a hole.  It didn’t need the 
sky.
	I stepped into the hole.  I kept thinking whole, not hole.  A whole hole, how clever.  An entire 
hole.  Alliteration sounds dumb.
	Water walls, though.  That sounds okay.  They look icky and dark, though.  No wonder I never wanted 
to go swimming in lakes.  You can’t see what’s in them, they’re full of slimy little fish and fish fodder 
and gross green things that must need light but don’t look like they’ve been near it.  That’s the walls 
of the whole hole.  Icky and dark.
	How deep is the lake?  It can’t be deep enough for kraken or octopi or giant squid.  If there were 
squid maybe there would be sperm whales.  That would be cool.
	The bottom of the whole is more hole.  The lake ends but the whole doesn’t, it’s still a hole.  Why 
do I keep thinking whole and hole?  Homonyms.  But w isn’t close to h on the keyboard, not any closer 
than q and g, and q and g at least look alike.  Honest mistake.  Whonest mistake.  That looks wrong.
	Why am I still falling?  Maybe it is a hole to Tokyo.  I want to be in Tokyo.  Is there a hole in 
the water there?  But I’ll burn up in the earth’s core, it’s too hot.  La la la.  Water magic, fire magic, 
lava magic.  I guess that’ll do.  Holes don’t have to lead anywhere.
	This is what happens when you read too many vampire books and then don’t have anything to do in the
afternoon.