The Hole
Andersen Prunty

A man receives a call from his sister-in-law. She tells him his brother caught a lazy eye at work.

That night, the man develops a hole halfway up his forearm. He explores the hole. It's too small to accomodate his index finger. He probes it with his pinky finger.

“I wonder where it leads,” he muses, pinkying. He removes his finger from the hole and smells it. The odor is only moderately disagreeable. Something similar to an old, sweaty navel.

The next day at work he brushes some of his arm hair over the hole. Luckily no one notices. When he gets home that evening, he showers and, as he is drying himself off, the hole’s smell wafts up to his nostrils. It smells much worse than before the shower. Nearly pungent. His sister-in-law calls again. This time she tells him his brother’s lazy eye has turned into a cataract.

“I’ve got problems of my own." He hangs up the phone.

He returns to the bathroom and scrubs the hole with great rigor. He finds a sliver of soap and works it around in the hole until the soap disintegrates. It doesn’t help. In fact, the man is quite sure the hole smells even worse.

“Shit,” he says. “Of all my holes, this is the baddest.”

Embarrassed, he stays home from work the next day. He breaks apart a stick of deodorant and places a piece in the hole. After a few minutes, the deodorant dissolves and he puts another piece in there. If ever his vigilance declines, the hole reminds him with a scent more powerfully chilling than the worst flatulence he’s ever smelled. That evening his sister-in-law calls to tell him his brother went to the doctor. In order to solve the problem with his brother’s eye, the doctor shot it out with a slingshot. Now his eye is fine—better than before, even. The man asks his sister-in-law for the doctor’s name. He calls and makes an appointment.

The next day he goes to see the doctor.

The man forgets to bring his deodorant. The nurse directs him to a waiting room, pushing him inside and quickly shutting the door behind him. He is alone.

A few hours later the doctor walks in. He shrieks when the stench of the hole greases his nostrils.

“My God," says the doctor. "That’s horrible."

The man points to his arm.

“Oh. I see. You have a hole.”

He pulls out a cotton swab and wipes the inside of the hole. He pulls it out and smells it, visibly suppressing his gorge and bracing himself on the bed.

“Jesus Christ that smells. Let me write you a prescription.”

“Thanks,” the man says. “I’ll be happy to get rid of it.”

“Two grapes and a piece of tape," says the doctor, scribbling the prescription on the back of a business card. "That oughtta do it.” He hands him the business card.

Skeptical, the man goes to the store, selecting the grapes and tape. He gives the cashier his prescription and medical card. She nods and hands him a receipt, suspiciously eyeing him. At home he inserts the grapes into the hole and applies the tape over the top of it.

The next morning the hole is gone.

The man takes a deep breath, and holds it in.

Andersen Prunty lives in the thriving metropolitan orgy of culture known as Dayton, Ohio. Assistant Beastmaster at a university existing only in his head, he is addicted to naps.