June 18, 2025

Hole-Water: This is nothing. A story, I guess. I don't have a brother.

My father planted an apple tree next to a hole in the ground. He dug the hole first and then dug another, smaller one for the tree.

He brought flat rocks from the riverbed and pushed them into the soil, constructing a stone wall around the interior of the hole. He filled the gaps with gravel.

The first time the hole in the ground collected rainwater, he planted the tree, spindly and fragile next to a stone bowl in the earth.

My father never told me what the hole was for, why it was so carefully constructed, what it was meant to catch or contain.

After a few years the tree grew fruit, which, negelected, fell to the ground, seeds seeking a hold on the earth. Some apples fell in the hole, left to rot.

My brother fell in the hole one summer. He wasn’t hurt beyond a few scrapes and embarrassment. But the next time it rained, the hole-water had a red tint. The following summer, I found him sitting in the hole, his eyes peeking over the edge mischievously, taunting me in the space he bled into and therefore was his.

My father never told me what the hole was meant to catch or contain. My brother chose for it to be him and apples. Rotting in the dirty water.