MicroHorror

This is what will happen to you tomorrow. You’ll walk to your mailbox and glance right. Not intentionally, but one of those “automatic” things you do, things like swinging your arms, licking your lips, breathing, blinking, thinking absurd things and being comfortable with that.

You will see a small hole in the lawn. A thin, rustic chain is poured in with about eight inches left exposed. Several links have small, jagged protrusions that’ll surely cut anyone who grabs hold. You’ve never seen it before and don’t know how it got there. Intuition moves your thoughts closer though you stand fast, unmoving. Subconscious, ancient wisdom identifies what you see as a presentiment. You don’t know how to proceed.

You realize this at 10:37 a.m.

One minute and nineteen seconds later, you will be on your way back from the mailbox, this time searching left. A nervous chuckle, laughing at yourself for thinking the scene would disappear if only you subtracted your gaze and thoughts from it. This next part is very important: At that moment you will recall the most terrible thing you’ve never said. A dagger of malice you at one time held close, neatly tucked away upstairs that you may have acted on, but never told a soul. The knowledge of that escorts you over.

You will naturally survey the area, certain this is all a bad joke. Then you will remember this and conclude that it’s not. The chain does nothing supernatural when you kick it. It slides over like any other. A dumb, soulless, lifeless thing made for things both practical and cruel. Why should you fear it? It was poured in, so it can be pulled out, right? Your intellect tells you this. Will you trust it?

Moments later, your gloved hands wrap around the chain. You feel the prickles through the cowhide as you start to pull. Surprisingly, with little effort, it moves. You pull. Soon, a growing pool of chain is at your feet. It’ll feel like you’ve been tugging at this thing forever, but actually two minutes and fifteen seconds have elapsed. You know this scene has to end and an unnamed dread knots your stomach. But you can’t stop now. There is some kind of treasure at the end of this rainbow, however marvelous or terrible.

You will pull for another six minutes and three seconds. Then: the end. Fastened to the end of the chain is a padlock looped through the penultimate link, unfastened. You know it’s a padlock, but have never seen anything before like it. It is gold surfaced and oddly shaped. It will strongly call to mind a trapezoid but you know it’s not that. You’ll examine it, sliding it around with palm and fingers, ultimately realizing there is no–

What was that? You’d just heard something from below. The hole in your lawn. Without further thought, you’ll kneel and bend. Doubling over from half your height you will incline your ear to hear.

For the next eight minutes and fifty-nine seconds, you’ll listen to a nondescript voice detail the remainder of your life. During that time you’ll laugh out loud, shed three tears and shake your head in disappointment, smooth down your eyebrows with thumb and index, cry.

Twenty-three minutes later, you’ll step out next to a gray Honda Civic stopped behind the caution arm of a railroad crossing. The approaching train will be traveling at forty-five miles an hour, a good head of steam. You’ll think about your horrible secrets that are so loud you’ll drown out the admonishing cries of the passengers in the car beside you. Should you walk or run? Either way is preferable to life with new information. The train is coming.

You will start to walk, but the Honda’s driver is after you now so you run. You calculate six point five seconds to impact, but soon discover that was three seconds too lo–