The Abyss

It was a car trip
To take the kids to see their grandmother,
Who lived down in Winnemucca.

We had traveled through thirteen states
Worth of weary roads and weather
Having stopped, already, to see
THE PIONEERS OF AMERICA
ANIMATRONIC MUSEUM,

To say nothing of the second largest chicken sculpture
In the whole of the Western world,
And a place with a collection of two headed snakes
(Most of them preserved in formaldehyde),

When we came across a billboard
Encouraging us to come and see
The one and only Abyss.

By that point I would have preferred to drive on by,
But the kids begged and my wife suggested
That it could be, in some vague sense,
Educational,

So we stopped.

I bought our tickets from a tired-eyed lady
And stepped past a worn purple curtain
Into a small room that held The Abyss.

We gazed into it,
And it, too, gazed into us.

I had never had the fundaments of my reality
Torn so thoroughly aside,
Leaving only the nihilistic tatters of despair
To clothe my naked soul.

After ten minutes or so,
I herded the kids back into the car.
It was still a long was to go
To Winnemucca.