The tear is a person

I guarded the tear in the universe for exactly two months and thirteen days. For this tiny window of time, I was its sole witness; me and the tear. It was the best-kept secret I’ve ever had in my life. Even now, I can feel it murmuring in my chest, echoing behind every third expansion of my lungs. From the minute I discovered the tear, I spent every spare moment repairing it, hiding a needle behind my ear and hooking a spool of thread onto my pinky finger. Every night, after I had kicked my backpack below my bed and stuffed a few lumpy pillows underneath my covers, I stole off to attend to my tattered friend. I worked until sunrise, methodically ripping shreds of my childhood nightgowns into thin strips to patch the hole. I tried first with denim, then again with silk, and finally with canvas before realizing that the nightgowns were the only viable material. Something about the frayed hems and soft stitching seemed to feed the tear, and it swallowed gown after gown. I didn’t wear them anymore and I wouldn’t wear them again. I loved the tear and it loved the nightgowns, so there was never really any choice to be made –  I didn’t mind then and I still don’t. I’m a lousy seamstress, but I worked until the needle sliced my fingertips raw. I was never lonely, though; I had the tear to keep me company, and between each stitch, I tucked a secret of mine into the other side of the universe. Secrets fed the tear better than nightgowns, I found, and it grew fat and full off of the things I had far too many of with far too little use for.

I had no idea I’d even had so many secrets until I started my project, but soon I began to find them at an alarming rate. Wiggling against my toes when I tried to put my shoes on in the morning, drowned at the bottom of my coffees, covered in lint in the depths of my pockets. I collected them in jars throughout the day and then brought them with me at night. There's something a bit ravenous about giving away a secret. At first, it’s this grandiose, formal exchange; it passes between hands like some dangerous animal. There is an air of professionalism as you solemnly swear to guard it with your life. Secret-giving is a very serious business, you know. But then one turns to two, then four, then eight, and there becomes something addicting about saying a thing aloud for the first time. Something raw and hot. The tear held my secrets between its lips (or perhaps its fingers, or teeth, or arms – I never found a polite moment to ask), eating them like chocolate coins with the golden wrappers left on. Known, eaten, and never spoken about again. They were everywhere, and soon, I had to invest in a small red wagon that clattered softly behind me as I made my way to the tear each night. It was exhausting work, but I enjoyed it. I’d grown attached to the tear. It comforted me to know that somewhere in the world was this small pocket with no bottom that knew me in a way that was invisible. It knew my mouth, my eyes, my hands. It knew the taste of my secrets, knew how they felt on its tongue, and swallowed them all the same. It never told a soul. This was the soft symbiotic agreement quietly present in our relationship. 

On the 13th night of the 3rd month, I returned to the tear for the final time, though I hadn’t known it until I arrived. I had no time to be sad; I hadn’t noticed any of the progress I’d made until I’d finished my project. I assessed my nearly complete patchwork in brief, stunned awe (but only for a moment), and then I worked in silence, as I always did. When I hid away my very last secret in the tear, I neatly closed the gap behind it, stepped back, and smiled. The tear was nowhere in sight. It seemed to have vanished beneath my very fingertips. I had done all I needed to. I quietly resolved to leave behind the wagon and empty jars; I had no use for them, but another tear-patcher soon might. 

I made it back to my room before the sun rose and didn’t open the blinds when I heard the world outside unhinge its jaw, yawn, and stretch. For a while, I stayed like that; sometimes, in my memory, it was only for a few hours, and other times I lay there until I fossilized. Memory can be funny in that way, I think. I don’t have the energy now to spend all night sneaking off to patch tears when I find them, so I’ve begun to hide the secrets in my closet, underneath my bed, behind curtains. Often, I can hear the sounds of particularly tall stacks of jars tumbling over and crashing against the floor, accompanied by the frantic scrabbling of my secrets squeezing their way between the floorboards to multiply inside the walls. I have given up trying to chase after them. Still, I try to point out the tears to those who do have the energy. They’re around if you know where to look. Some nights, if you’re really still, you can hear the tear-patchers passing through. If you listen closely, you might even hear the soft clanking of a metal wagon and the quiet rattling of glass jars somewhere very far off in the distance.