Mouth Breather

The realtor steps inside like she’s returning. She doesn’t look at me. Her eyes sweep the room, parsing texture, logging dimensions and wear.

“Thanks for having me over!” she says. “I can already tell you’ve taken great care of the home.”

“You can?” I ask as her foot crushes a mummified chicken tender Anya left on the entry mat weeks ago.

“The first few seconds are when most people decide if something’s worth saving. I know you and your wife…”

“Donna.”

“…are worried about sinking a ton of money into updates before listing but let me assure you: I'm here to help you figure out what’s worth your time and what isn’t.” She stops her inspection and looks at me for the first time. “With a toddler and Donna due any day now, I’m sure you don’t have much time or mental energy to spare.”

She walks over to the sinkhole in the middle of the living room floor and peers in as it slowly sucks the carpet down. I step beside her, and together we stare into the muddy sphincter.

“This has been my main concern,” I say. “I’m not sure there’ll be a house left to sell by the time we’re packed up.”

“Oh, hush,” she says. She doesn’t take her eyes off it. The sudden aggression in her tone is confusing, and I wish I hadn’t called her. She looks back at me and her smile returns. “The living room will probably be gone by then, but we can still sell what’s remaining. It’s a seller’s market.”

"Oh, good," I say, hearing the whine I use when I want Donna to think I’m ok. "So, when do we need to be out?"

“As soon as possible. With the hole…definitely, or you’ll never sell.”

When she leaves, Donna reappears, and the cats emerge from their hidden corners. Perpetually starving, they begin whining immediately.

---

Days pass. We still haven’t started packing. Today will be the day. Yesterday was supposed to be. So was the day before. Donna stands in the kitchen doorway, me at the hallway entrance. Between us, the living room clenches. We’re about to start when the ceiling caves in. The living room puckers, seals itself shut, and cuts us off from each other.

I search for a way out of the hallway, but there isn’t one. So I climb out through Anya’s bedroom window, circle around, and try to reach the kitchen to help Donna. The fence is too high, and I haven’t been able to climb it in years. I keep it locked from the inside. The baby’s due any day and I keep texting her: Contractions? She texts back: Have you seen the cats?

Since the collapse, a cold breeze moves through the house, rising and retreating, colder than the air outside. It exhales into the room, then pulls back. Each time, the pressure shifts. The walls whine. Sound dulls. Stillness settles before the cold returns. The pattern repeats without end.

---

It’s on the bookshelf, Donna texts.

The library is lined with shelves on both sides, and I’m digging through a decade of clutter. Books in every direction, action figures mid-attack, magazines with permanently curved spines from the weight of their neighbors.

Which shelf?

Front and center on the middle case sits an old CD stereo that stopped working years ago but never made it to the trash. I glance over piles of mail and loose papers, bloated from humidity.

IDK, dude. She couldn’t throw me a bone. Never did.

There are eight bookshelves, I reply.

Somewhere on the bookshelf. She’s mad.

I’ll find it. Do you think you’ll be able to get out of the kitchen window? I know there’s no way, but I still ask. She has access to the kitchen, dining room, and laundry room, but only the kitchen has a window.

I’m too pregnant. I can’t climb over.

I don’t want her to try, either.

My back is killing me. We shouldn’t waste time. We need to pack.

Contractions? I lift a plastic bag from the shelf, and a lizard rushes out. The bag is wet, something leaking inside, ants crawl over the surface. A full ecosystem. No tape.

A groan comes from the living room. Something crumbles. The floor shakes.

She doesn’t answer. I text: How’s Anya? The ceiling slopes, forcing me to duck as I move toward the far end. My VHS collection. I don’t let anyone pile junk on them. They still do, though.

She’s putting socks over her doll’s legs, Donna replies.

A new thought: How will you guys go to the bathroom?

They are mermaids.

What? I nearly slip on a stack of DVDs.

The dolls. Did you find the tape?

I take one more look around, the clutter coalescing into an endless onslaught of visual stimuli—kaleidoscopic, all-consuming—forming a single shifting organism, morphing as my gaze moves across the shelves, no longer separate things.

No. It’s ok, I don’t need it.

I turn toward the hall, the untaped box in my hand, as she replies: Next to the CD player.

---

The hallway is pitch black. I crawl, hugging the wall, around the corner until I see the light spilling from the bedroom door at the far end. It gives me a false sense of regained orientation, and I start to stand—right as a bone-deep thunk seizes me. The boob light’s finial bites into my skull and sends pain down my spine in waves that settle at the base of my neck. It’s still too low here, and I should’ve known. The rectangle of light from the bedroom doorway is only half as tall as it used to be. I drop back down and crawl through the threshold into the ruins beyond. 

Strewn in heaps and tangles, reeking of cat piss and fermenting fast food, an endless fractal of garbage folds in on itself. The outlines of a dresser, a desk, a bed remain. Shapes swallowed by junk, a postdiction of former order. Half-eaten scraps, dragged off by the cats and left to rot in forgotten corners, choke the air. I step between mounds of dirty clothes. There’s no obvious place to start.

Harsh summer sunlight stabs through the window, slices through floating dust and lodges straight into my brain. My thoughts trip over each other. Though I don’t need to, I decide to use the restroom first.

The fan above the toilet in the master bathroom has never been turned off. We use it as white noise when we sleep, but over the years it’s started to rattle nonstop, straining against its housing. Aware it’s trapped. Sometimes it whines, pained by its own chaotic wobbling. As I sit, I worry it’ll wrench free from its cage and wedge itself into my skull. Still, I don’t turn it off.

I sit there looking up until the floor rumbles beneath my feet and the sound of splintering wood and shifting debris bellows from the living room.

---

I start with the garbage. A purge before the real packing begins. The bags are in the kitchen, so I’m throwing everything straight out the window. Once the trash is gone, I’ll be able to see what’s worth saving. I grab a handful of dirty paper scraps, ready to toss, when I notice Donna’s handwriting on a greasy burger wrapper.

PLEASE COME HOME SOON DADDY. I LOVE YOU.

Anya made her write it. I remember that day now. She asked to come with me. I said no. Just running quick. Stay with Mommy. She cried.

I look at the wrapper. It’s stained, curling at the edges. I put it in the box.

---

Contractions are closer. I think it’s starting.

My thumbs don’t work. The house stirs around me, the sound stretching long and low.

She texts again: Have you seen the cats?

No, I write back. The room is smaller. The piles of clothes and stacks of junk close in. I can reach out and touch things I couldn’t before. I grab a shirt and toss it in. Grab another. It’s too slow. The floor shudders beneath me. A crack snaps through the wall. Just thinking about the piles makes my head throb. I haven’t even finished one.

Donna: I think it’s coming soon. I can try to hold off, but I don’t know.

I swallow. Lie down. Try to breathe. I’ll hurry.

A floorboard whines behind me.

"Daddy?"

Anya is standing in the doorway, clutching one of her dolls, its mermaid-tail sock dangling limp at her side.

“How did you get here?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer. Just steps inside. Barefoot, she picks her way through the mess like a professional. The doll swings from her grip as she vaults a pile and lands softly beside me. "Can you play with me?"

The cold breeze brushes my neck. "Not right now, baby. I'm busy."

She tilts her head, plucks something shiny from the pile, tucks it into her doll’s hair. "I can help you pack." She fake-burps and laughs, a trick she begged me to teach her until I finally gave in.

"I know you can, baby, but I'm in a hurry." I shove another fistful of clothes into the box. Try to force the flaps to meet. My fingers are weak. "We need to get Mommy out of here. I need to finish this quickly."

She curls her toes against the wooden floor. "She's crying,” she says. “Her body hurts."

A fracture webs out across the ceiling above. My hands press harder against the box, trying to flatten it into something manageable. Something finished. It won’t go. "Anya—" I swallow. "How did you get here? I think we need to stop packing and get back to Mommy now."

“I know the way,” she says, hugging my leg. “It’s easy. I can show you.” She must’ve climbed over debris. Crawled under the sagging ceiling. Stepped over the splintered floor tilting toward the hole. She lets go. Turns. Runs.

"Anya—"

The house shifts again, a deep roll through the walls. Somewhere distant, a section of ceiling gives way and slams to the floor.

"Anya!" I shout. She's gone.

---

I drag myself back into the hall after her. The low ceiling swallows my calls. Presses down. Squeezes. I can't crawl any farther. Here, the hallway glows silver, and I can see my hands. To my right, the living room entrance is gone, buried under sagging drywall. Moonlight spills through a hole. Anya must have crawled out there, into the living room.

I twist my way through the hole and panic as my stomach corks it. I wonder if I’ll be stuck here until I’m swallowed too. Then I flop out and roll to a stop. Debris litters the ground around me. The cold breeze skims my balding scalp. It’s stronger out here. Straight from the source. Above me, the night sky stretches wide. The moon is full.

The living room is gone. The remaining rooms stand like Stonehenge, circling the sinkhole. Behind me, the hallway. Across the void, the kitchen and dining room.

A crack echoes from the far side as I rise. I look up — a chunk of the laundry room wall breaks off, tumbles down the slant, and vanishes. Even in the moonlight, the center is pure darkness. I won’t get closer. I skirt the edge, staying near what’s still standing. Anya probably ran around it, back to Donna. The breeze is constant now. I can barely keep my eyes open.

The hole inhales, and I have to catch my breath. I should have seen it sooner. I was born cursed to suffer. I fear Anya was, too.

“Anya!”

“Quit being so dramatic, Daddy!” Her voice. I turn to face it and see her. Anya stands at the edge of the sinkhole, her small body silhouetted by the moon. 

The sinkhole is alive. A tongue rises from its depths, gleaming. It curls upward, brushes across slick gums and towering teeth. 

Anya dances with it.

She twirls slowly, the hem of her dress caught in the motion. Her arms stretch outward, her feet light on the trembling ground. The tongue rises and falls with her steps, keeping time. She looks at me, unafraid.

“It’s okay, Daddy,” she says. “The mouth is nice to me.”

Behind me, the wall pops. A fracture tears through the laundry room. I whip around and see Donna through the hole, gripping the jagged frame of the broken doorway. More of the laundry room crumbles around her. The floor angles toward the abyss.

I step toward Anya, my throat tight. “Come here, baby. We need to get Mommy.”

She stops spinning. The tongue slants, confused. She looks down at her doll, the sock dangling from its legs. Without hesitation, she extends her arms and presses her creation onto the tongue’s pebbled surface. It curls gently around the plastic and tangled hair, accepting. The doll disappears, sock and all.

Anya smiles, content. “I can keep the mouth happy. You go save Mommy,” she says. Then she’s gone past its lips.

My legs are putty. I want to scream. Donna beats me to it. Her voice is serrated. I snap around. The laundry room wall caves inward. Wood and drywall split. The entire structure moves, listing toward the open mouth. I surge forward, haul Donna upright. Her breath hitches. Her fingernails dig into my shoulder as I drag her from the collapse. The ground heaves. I feel it pulling. I don’t stop. 

We break free into the front yard. I set Donna down, her body winding inward, her breaths shallow and rapid. 

“Stay here,” I tell her.

The cats emerge from the shadows, all of them, dust-covered and fur puffed. They weave Donna’s legs as she sinks into the ground. One settles in her lap. Then I go.

---

Anya’s still where she was. Dancing. Around her, everything breaks.

“Come here,” I say, breathless.

She looks at me. The tongue shifts beneath her, twisting at the edges, beckoning.

“You’re not scared?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Why?” I whisper.

She reaches out and places her small hand on the tongue’s glistening surface. It doesn’t recoil. It shudders. Pleased. “It’s always been here,” she says.

The ground moves like a conveyor belt toward the open mouth. I step forward and scoop her into my arms. She’s small. Weightless. She presses her face into my shoulder, then lifts her head. Her breath is warm against my neck. “Come on, Daddy.” Calm and certain.

I look down, ashamed. I set her on the ground next to me. “I don’t know where to go.”

She steps forward first, leading me. “It’s okay,” she says. “Just walk.”

I listen. The ground beneath us becomes quicksand under the vibration. The earth holds my feet. Pulls me deeper. The house collapses behind us. The maw slurps it down. I hear teeth grinding wood. 

We walk.

Ahead, Donna cries out with effort. Behind us, the sinkhole lets out a long, satisfied belch. Anya fake-burps back.