The Hole

An utter mess of boxes, bed frames and useless pieces of furniture piled haphazardly in a cacophonous mess. These were the remnants of my cousins, who had moved to California but left most of their junk in our basement.

It was heaven to me.

Our basement was divided into two sides. One was carpeted with a dirty, thin material that didn't keep the cold from seeping through. The other side was just cemented floor, and occupied by the junk. On the un-junked side sat a thread-worn couch grayed from over a decade of use, which sagged in front of our modestly sized television; an old kitchen table stained with my sisters' various art projects; a dollhouse adorned with blank-faced Barbies; and a humming refrigerator full of fermenting kimchee.

The day after Halloween, my mother confiscated my entire horde of trick-or-treating chocolate and hid it inside the freezer, next to the icemaker and behind the week-old popsicles. I duly fished half of it out when she went grocery shopping (only half to dampen suspicion at my sneaky deed) and wandered around the house, looking for the perfect hiding spot.

I considered my room, but discarded the idea. Somehow, my little sister managed to find my diary every time I re-hid it there. She could find my glorious stash of candy. I pranced through the den and the kitchen. Horrible places to hide anything - my mother overturned both rooms weekly in her dust-induced cleaning frenzies.

I trotted downstairs, wincing at each creaky footstep, and surveyed my basement for a hiding place. Nowhere. I slumped on the bottom step, pressed my ice-cold candy to my heart, and received a sudden inspiration. Did I dare? My mother had forbidden me from ever entering the unfinished half of our basement, claiming that spiders, crickets, and maybe even a rat might have their cozy home in the mess. Barely believing my audaciousness, I opened the peeling door to the forbidden side and tiptoed in. There was about a foot of moving space before the junk range started. I closed the door behind me and shivered in the utterly still darkness, a lopsided grin forming on my face.

Then, an unwanted chill ran down my spine and I opened the door again, letting some grimy light filter in. There! I spotted a filthy light bulb hanging over the shadowy surfaces. I hoisted my candy bag and began to climb the mountain of stuff with a determination to conquer.

I scrambled onto a dresser, teetered over the oriental-style wardrobe and pulled myself across a tipped-over desk. Then, with a colossal leap, I landed on top of the giant bed frame. I tugged the little string that would turn the light on, and, sure enough, a dim glow effused through the room.

Ecstatic with success, I clambered back down and took a seat on a stack of boxes labeled BOOKS. I balanced my candy on a nearby lamp stand with the air of an astronaut planting a flag on the moon and examined my surroundings. It was cozy and moldy and fusty—just right. I sat there for some time, daydreaming, when the sound of the garage door opening broke my reverie. I jumped up, stashed my bag of candy in a random dresser drawer, snatched at the light, ran out the door and turned the television on, my heart thumping but my face crafted into interest for the program that wavered on our ancient T.V.

I would play this charade many times. Both my parents worked, and I had a glorious hour to myself before any of my other family members arrived back home. At that time, my family was my aunt, my uncle, my two cousins, my two little sisters, my grandparents, my mom and dad, a Chinese fighting fish, and an old black poodle, all living inside our cozy home.

Of course, my grandparents were always home, but they never questioned my whereabouts, as they occupied their time by arguing merrily, watching old soaps, and planting (and eventually killing) traditional Korean gardens.

I soon knew every nook and cranny of that magnificent mess — where little rivulets of tunnel had formed, which places wouldn't support even my slight weight. My most brilliant find, however, was the Hole. Somehow, the furniture had been arranged into a pattern so that, in the center, there was a gap where I could touch the floor. It took me a week of exploring before I discovered that if I moved a couple boxes here and that old stool somewhere else, I could create a narrow tunnel that led straight to the Hole. It became my place. I filched a couple blankets from my grandmothers' closet and a flashlight from my cousins' room, and, every afternoon, I would crawl into my Hole with my latest find from the library and spend a merry hour reading alone.

At four-forty sharp, I would sigh, crawl out of the Hole, dust myself off and clump the weary trek back up to the room that I shared with my sister and cousin. And five minutes later, without delay, my cousins would arrive from their English tutor or violin lesson or whatever else they had going on. Ten minutes after that, my mother would burst through the door, accompanied by my shrieking daycare sisters. Closely following my mother would be my aunt, back from her job at the Korean grocery, and my father, who had picked her up on his way home. Then my peace would be over.

My girl-cousin would kick me out of my room so she could do some homework. My boy-cousin would be sure to steal the remote to watch his soccer game. My sisters would insist on following me around, and if I showed my face in front of my mom or aunt, I would most certainly be loaded with a bundle of chores.

Dinner was a hectic affair. We ate buffet style, plates all over the kitchen, people sitting next to the fireplace or on the staircase, glaring at the lucky few who got a place at the table.

I hated the entire affair, the business, the shouting, the noise in general. I wanted to be alone.

I didn't understand why our cousin's family had to live with us. They made my life miserable. I couldn't have my own room anymore; I no longer had any attention from my parents; and worst of all, my mother forced me to take piano lessons from my aunt.

I loathed my aunt during that hated half hour of piano. Her face flushed red, voice hoarse from shouting at me, she would tap incessantly on our splintery piano, occasionally missing it and hitting my fingers. I would sit with a sullen frown on my face and play everything half-heartedly. I would fumble my scales, play all the rhythms wrong in Minuet and refuse to hit the sharps in the despicable Bach Inventions. It gave me a secret, vindictive pleasure to hear her wheedle and scream. It was my guilty revenge to their entire family for barging into my life.

I took refuge in the basement. Those quiet hours in the Hole kept me going.

But furtive hidey Holes, like all other secrets, can't exist for very long. On one dreary Wednesday afternoon, as long, cold panes of rain pounded on my roof, it all fell apart. I was sitting in my Hole, enraptured in a new book when I heard my name.

"Mi—ii—na!" It was my cousin, Lee. I could tell by his horrible accent and cracking voice.

I heard him thud down the stairs and felt a small tang of satisfaction, knowing that my Hole hid me from view. I figured he would head back upstairs upon hearing no reply, but the sound of his footsteps kept growing. He was coming toward the junked side of the basement!

I flipped the flashlight off and sat in the semidarkness, still sure that he would not be able to find me. I was the great explorer, the first navigator of the endless peaks of furniture. There was no way that Lee would be able to ...

I heard an odd panting noise above me, and felt some of the furniture shift over my head. Lee was climbing my junk range! I heard him grunt in glee as the light bulb flickered on. I hugged my knees close, not trusting myself to breathe as he lumbered around. I heard the distinctive, dull clunk of the armchair I had spent a whole hour moving fall from its place and quivered with anger. However, there was nothing I could do. He would have to overturn the entire basement before I gave up my hiding place.

Then the moving stopped. The basement became still once again, and had it not been for the yellow light squeezing through the cracks of my bed frame ceiling, I would have sworn that the episode had been a figment of my imagination. I stayed still for another couple of minutes until I felt sure Lee had left. Then I turned on my flashlight and shined it on a chair blocking one of the passageways out. I had been saving this particular tunnel for a special occasion, but figured Lee almost catching me was good enough. I pushed on the chair.

It pushed back.

Furious, I gave the chair another hard shove, putting the flashlight resolutely between my teeth. Lee had almost found my hiding place; it was almost four forty, and there was no way I was giving up a fight to a chair. I shoved into the chair. It groaned but held stubbornly. The chair started the counterattack, fighting with hard, purposeful, chair-like jabs. Sweat rolled down my forehead and my arms began to hurt, but I refused to give up. Then, a brilliantidea struck me. I held steady, waiting for a particularly hard shove. The chair was building up momentum ... I couldn't hold much longer ... right before the push that would end it all, I let go.

The chair came tumbling into my Hole. On top of it was Lee. I stared at him in disbelief, the pieces falling into place. He, however, was quicker to react. He jumped to his feet and started yelling at me in Korean. I didn't understand everything he said -- he always had a bad stutter and my Korean comprehension wasn't good to begin with -- but I got the general idea. He pushed me through the tunnel. I kicked back, grabbed his glasses and threw them against the side of a dresser. Lee stumbled around blindly and hit the side of the tunnel. The entire mountain range of junk gave a loud, dangerous shudder. I envisioned the appalling death by suffocation under a ton of furniture and flipped my flashlight on, shining it at Lee, who was picking up his broken glasses.

The light illuminated more than just my cousin.

Magazine cutouts of soccer players lined the walls of the tunnel. There was a stack of comic books behind me and I sat in a pile of Starbursts wrappers. Looking around at my unfamiliar surroundings, it dawned on me. I was sitting in Lee's secret hideout. He had created his special burrow right next to mine, and I hadn't discovered it. The pride I had for my knowledge of the junk range crumbled, and I stared down the defiled tunnel that no longer belonged to me. Lee pushed past me and stormed out, but I took my time resurfacing, saying the final goodbye to the dust-capped mountains that had held my secrets and comforted me with silence.

My cousin's family moved out to their own apartment a month after that particular incident. Lee and I never talked about our clandestine operations in the basement, and, a year later, I no longer remembered the once well-traveled routes of the Hole. When my cousins finally moved back from California and took all their stuff out of my basement, leaving only an empty, desolate room, my only regret was that I never remembered where I stashed my Halloween candy the day I discovered the Hole.

Notes:

Second Place in: "Great Short Stories Contest" 
Thank you, mars and GabGivesThanks4BirthdayWishs for the beautiful award-i-con.

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