Sink

I’d just come back home from a grueling day at work. The boss had heard me talking shit about him, and was taking the slow and steady approach to make my life miserable. I needed to relax.
I called a couple of friends over. As we were chatting, I heard a loud humming sound from my backyard. At first, I assumed it was a car passing by, but it wasn’t dying down. We made our way outside to find that the sound was coming from a huge, gaping hole in the ground. It was two-thirds the size of a manhole.
As we came closer, we began to notice something weird. The sound was changing scales like a song. It sounded like a bunch of people humming a sad, beautiful melody.
We weren’t sure what to do. Maybe some animal dug it, I thought. I came back with my baseball bat, yelled at the hole, and threw a rock in it. Nothing happened. The ‘song’ carried on, uninterrupted.
After some hesitation, I peeked into it. The humming stopped.
I stepped back. The humming resumed. The air above it was icy cold. I shivered and looked at the guys, who responded with blank stares. I tried again, this time putting my hand above the hole. The humming didn’t stop.
One of my friends, Sal, decided to volunteer. Same results. The humming seemed to stop only when we directly looked into it.
After playing around for a while, we declared it to be a tiny sinkhole, and called it a night. I covered the hole with some plastic sheets I found in the garage. Good enough to drown out the sound a bit.
The next day, a call from my boss woke me up. He wanted me to come in ASAP and work on a same-day deliverable. I was pissed. In my frustration, I’d forgotten about the sinkhole. I got ready, skipped breakfast and rushed to the car. It’s only when I took the car out of the driveway that I realized something was missing. The sound from the hole had stopped completely. I went into the backyard to double check. No sound. Feeling kind of relieved, I made my way to the office.
It was a stressful day. My boss was at his micromanaging best. Me and another teammate sat in a conference room for hours at a stretch, only getting up for more coffee.
It was 8 PM, and we were almost done.
“Will you stop it already,” she suddenly said.
“Stop what?” I asked.
“Stop humming that song. You’ve been humming it all day,” she replied.
I was humming the sinkhole melody on loop. The realization made my hair stand on end. It just has a catchy tune, I convinced myself, and resumed work.
On my way back to the house, I got a call from Sal, asking to meet. He sounded worried.
I found him waiting outside my house as I pulled into the driveway. There was something off about him. He said he just wanted to hang out. As we entered the backyard, he started humming the tune. The hole was singing again too. Sal said he wanted to sit near it. I removed the covers and pulled a couple of chairs next to it. After chatting briefly, both of us didn’t say a word for what seemed like an hour. Then he started humming the tune again. To my surprise, I joined him.
It felt involuntary, and I started to panic. I forced myself to get up and go inside the house. Sal didn’t seem to notice. I washed my face to clear my head, and decided to call the authorities later that night. This made me feel a bit better.
I went back out with a couple of beers, and froze in horror. Sal was standing at the edge of the hole with his face bent down, still humming. The sinkhole was silent.
“SAL!” I screamed. “GET AWAY FROM IT”
He slowly tilted his head towards me. His lifeless eyes stared into mine, and a smile crossed his face. He hummed louder as he looked back at the hole.
“Don’t do it. DON’T DO IT, SAL”
On hearing this, he stopped humming. I could see tears falling into the hole. I ran towards him.
“Help…me”, he managed to say with great effort. Before I could react, he jumped.
I felt like my chest was about to cave in. I stumbled to the hole and collapsed, staring at the edge where Sal had stood just moments ago.
After a few minutes, the humming resumed. A familiar voice had joined the chorus.
