Size / / /

Content warning:



[click on each image to view full-screen]

Text: Our ancestors discovered it centuries ago. Now it is a tourist attraction, Image: A roadside billboard reads, "Visit the Bottomless Pit, 10 miles." Poem by John Johnson. Art by Bob Hall. Text: they put bumper stickers for it on your car if you park too long in nearby towns, it's a hole in the ground. Like a round black pupil. Surrounded by a concrete iris rim. There is no guard rail. It would be easy for someone reckless to leap across. Image: A drab green field contains a cracked concrete circle around a black hole like a staring pupil. Text: But it truly is deep beyond imagination…a tunnel going down endlessly. Current operators say it was built for entertainment, but it's much older than that. And it doesn't go out the other side of the world, so it must end somewhere. Image: Planet Earth surrounded by its atmosphere, a mirror image of the hole circled by concrete.

Text: There was a small crowd of vacationers milling about. Bored, standing too close, I thought, like people too close to the tracks in a subway, like they didn't believe it was dangerous. There was a toddler, a little girl. I watched as the mother unbelievably became distracted, just for a second. Image: Tourists of all ages gather around a hole the size and shape of a well, leaning over the edge to take selfies, dangling their feet in. A toddler in flip-flops perches on the lip of the hole while a woman holding a shopping bag looks at a small dog. Baby feet twist into the air as the child tumbles forward. Text: I didn't have time to yell. Image: The toddler's frightened face and outstretched hand as the child falls into darkness, a loose flip-flop beside the child's contorted body. Text: The child peered over and tumbled in.

Text: I still think about her falling. I try to believe the experience was so unusual for her she didn't process it as fear, but rather as the sensation of floating, the rushing air a wind, pushing her back to her mother. Image: Four vertical white lines show different stages of the child's fall. The child is halfway down, then lower, then lower, falling, twisting. Text: To plummet like that, on and on, unknowing, it would be a kind of freedom. One night, I dreamed there was a soft landing, just a little ways down, a sunny, grassy, bottom, where she tumbled, alive and happy… Image: The moment of impact—the child landing on her bottom in a patch of grass, bare feet waving in sunshine. Final Text: …with all the other fallen children. Final Image: The child smiles gently as she is greeted by two dozen enthusiastic children of varied ages and races. One boy turns toward her with a ball in his hands. Another child waves from a climbing tree. Another holds his arms wide, inviting a hug.



John Philip Johnson has work in Rattle, Asimov’s, F&SF, Apex, Mythic Delirium, The Pedestal, Phantom Drift, Ted Kooser’s newspaper column, “American Life in Poetry,” and the Poetry Foundation, with Pushcart, Best-of-Web, and Rhysling noms. He would love to live on Mars. His comics are from his new comic book, The Book of Fly, which is graphic poetry in Twilight Zone-like episodes. Available at www.johnphilipjohnson.com.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Friday: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen 
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Load More