One day in class the boy heard something he had never hear before. It was as if the building was groaning, moaning under some immense pain. It was a sound he could have made only if he’d been breathing in. it could be a ship creaking underwater. He glanced around at the faces of his friends, but they registered nothing. Now it was as if he was listening to only this sound and silence, everything else was absorbed by it.
Pulling his chair from underneath him, he stood up slowly, and walked to the door, opened it and left the room.
In the corridor, the sound was thicker, and oozed through the cracks above the walls like honey. That’s where it was coming from! Above the walls, cracks dividing the wall plaster and the ceiling, and it was gettgin stronger. Excited he ran down the corridor where it was draftier still. And there in the wall was a door he;d never seen before.
Checking over his shoulder to scan the empty corridor, he turned the handle to find it unlocked, and on the other side a brisk breeze. He stepped out into the space. Here he couldn’t believe what he could see. Through his building, in his city, there was a giant hole thrown through the middle of all that concrete, barged through, like a bulldozer of air. It was clean and fell away at both sides, and in the distance he could see the buildings. The air rushed past, as it would around the buildings, and vibrated in the cavern.
Something was different. On one side it was still day, as he’d left the building before. The clouds hid the sun, and a flock of birds flew past his cavern. But on the other side it was night. The city suddenly still, lit from its windows, instead of the other way around.
Suddenly he felt a chill, brought on by the air and sound enveloping him, rushing one side to the other, like time.