Benicio del Toro

by Samantha Allen

A while ago, while riding the dream-time continuum, I awoke as myself. I was buried in a shallow grave under soft soil the color of turmeric, with the taste of gasoline on the tip of my tongue. There were other women, too. All wearing scrubs. They were nurses, like the ones who sutured my chin when I was twelve. The scrubs had cute animal prints and animated hearts.

We didn’t dig ourselves out to escape the shallow grave we awoke in. Instead, we located an air vent at the center of the shallow grave buried in the Earth—the kind you see in offices, squares with ridges like Ruffles potato chips. We lifted the air vent, tossed it aside, and filed into line to climb down it. Don’t ask me how the physics of this worked; I was on God’s time.

We found ourselves in a multiple-stall bathroom. It reminded me of the massive airport bathrooms, leading us deeper down the hole we dug ourselves into. We didn’t need to talk to each other. We  had one communal brain and communicated not telepathically but all from the same source. My brain was their brain, and theirs was mine. So naturally, we all came to the same horrible, claustrophobic conclusion. Then, one by one, we walked up to a toilet and dove head-first into it.

Thanks to the communal brain, I know we all landed safely. Thank God! The toilets were the automatic flushing variety. The automatic flushing toilet portals took us all to different realities, but we were all safe. I landed in the desert, surrounded by dunes as high as skyscrapers, alone and scarcely clad in a flowy, shapeless dress—similar to a Frat Boy toga, only stylish, like Versace.

A yellow Jeep appeared on the horizon, driving as if orchestrated by a wild woman. Hold on to that; the punchline is later. The Jeep wasn’t turmeric yellow but daisy yellow, one of the older models. The ones that still have a bit of spirit. The driver wasn’t a wild woman but a madman. Benicio del Toro circa 1995, or the same year Usual Suspects came out. Watching him on screen as a wild teen, he was a real heart-throb. I mean, just an excellent specimen.

He pulled up, and the Jeep door swung open like an invitation. He didn’t hold the door open for me because he wasn’t a gentleman; I wasn’t either. “Money for Nothing” was playing on the radio. Strange how I could hear it in my dream, but also, like a ripple in my subconscious, I could feel that I was hearing it in the Real World® as well. The layers of Dream Reality separated like peanut butter while I lay in my bed, eyelids trembling. I stuck my mind’s hand into infinite nothingness and pulled back the veil of the subconscious; Benecio Del Toro and I rode off into the sunshine-yellow sunset.

Author Bio: Samantha Allen, a high school dropout turned STEM professional, writes from her Rhode Island apartment she shares with her two cats. Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s “Armageddon in Retrospect” during her youth, she continues to enjoy reading and writing short stories. She collects shells, untold perspectives, books, houseplants and unique experiences.

Artwork: “Sycamore Wants to be the Sky”

Artist Bio: Robb Kunz hails from Teton Valley, Idaho. He received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Idaho. He currently teaches writing at Utah State University and is the Art and Design Faculty Advisor of Sink Hollow: An Undergraduate Literary Journal. His art has been published in Peatsmoke Journal, Red Ogre Review, Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine, and New Delta Review. His art is upcoming in Ponder Review, Glassworks Magazine, and Anodyne Magazine.