The hole in Quinn's back yard

One morning, when Quinn woke up, he found a hole in his back garden.

He grabbed a spade from his shed and filled the hole in. However, as he stepped back to admire his work, he found another hole, freshly dug, about a foot away from the other hole and ever so slightly bigger.

Undeterred, he simply stuck his spade in the soil a foot away and began filling in the new hole.
However, no sooner had he filled in the new hole than another one appeared, about a foot away from the previous hole and ever so slightly bigger.

The hole day passed. Quinn worked hard, do not doubt the effort he put in, but whenever he filled in a hole another appeared about a foot away. It was if the hole was moving down the path, and growing as it did so.

 When Quinn reached the road, the neighbour, Veronica, called her husband. “Pete, get your shovel, Quinn needs a hand.”

It was that sort of neighbourhood, everyone helped each other. Pete’s assistance meant that the new hole was filled in in record time, however, this didn’t stop the appearance of anther new hole, about a foot away from the previous one.

Undettered, the two men simply started digging up dirt to fill the new hole. They were soon joined by Doug and Eric.

The hole team worked their way along the road, filling in holes, but no sooner was one hole filled-in, than another, slightly larger hole appeared.

By the next day the whole town had gotten involved. As well as helping to dig, several people used the holes to dispose of rubbish.

The hole continued to move along the road and it also continued to grow. It made the local news, and the chirpy local news reporter, Buck Hagland, was game enough to pick up a shovel and help dig himself.

The hole slowly moved across America, growing as it did so. All along the route people helped, or volunteered their husbands to help, it was that sort of country. People also used the hole to dump their rubbish in, old cars, dead dogs, spent fridges, even an unwanted whale, but no matter was thrown in the hole, no sooner was it filled in than another, even bigger hole appeared.

Twenty-five years later, Quinn and his hole had crossed the whole of the USA and reached the front of the White House. By now the hole was a hundred miles across and deeper than any measure could tell, maybe deeper than human knowledge itself.

By this time, of course, Quinn had a huge crowd with him, millions of people, all digging for America.

“Come and help us dig,” they cried out to the new president and his entourage of billionaire white men.

“I don’t dig,” the new president said, “I get other people to dig and then demand that neighbouring countries pay for the work.”

None of the president’s men would pick up a shovel and help. They weren’t that type of men. However, there was a lot of rubbish around. Not the usual kind of rubbish, it was all vile pollutant, racism, hate, feral greed, a ruthless lack of care for the world they lived in. The bile, venom, puss and poison of the presidential party poured into the hole.

In no time at all, the hole, vast as it had once seemed, was now filled in, apart from one hole, six feet deep, seven feet long and just wide enough for a fat billionaire.

Seeing the opportunity to claim a free hole, because the president’s greed was total and there was literally nothing he wouldn’t grab if he wanted it, the president climbed into the hole.

At least he tried to. However, even though the hole was big enough he couldn’t get in, he struggled, he punched, he pushed, he demanded, but to no avail. The earth simply rejected him.

And the newly-filled hole began to rumble. The earth was also rejecting the bile and poison that had poured in from the president and his men.

The earth bubbled and spat, an earthquake erupted, and the president, at the very centre of the hole, at the very centre of the erupting magma of bile, was shot like a canon-ball, through the air, up into the heavens, all the way through the earth’s atmosphere, and far, far, far into distant space.