Notes From The Bottomless Pit

NOTES FROM THE BOTTOMLESS PIT
by Matthew Sanborn Smith

At first blush one might think that being thrown into a bottomless pit would be a dreadful thing. In truth it's only the public relations people that have made it seem so. Lokar, the God-King, needs a punishment with which he can really threaten the populace, to keep them in line and all that and the bottomless pit is a good threat on the face of it. No one who's in it can go back and tell the others that it's really quite nice. The commoners would be lining up to throw themselves in, if they only knew.

One gets over the screaming after about twenty minutes or so, once the throat becomes sore. But consider this: What's to fear? It's initially quite unnerving, of course. No one likes falling, but when it occurs to a person that he or she will never hit bottom, relaxation sets in and it's taken in stride.

Even so, you ask, wouldn't a body eventually starve, falling for eternity? Not so. You'd be surprised at the number of marmosets, not to mention imported lemmings, one can just pluck from the air and devour at one's leisure.

When all of these factors are taken into account with the added benefit of not toiling for Lokar's whip-masters for eighteen hours a day, one concludes that falling into a bottomless pit is really quite preferable to life above.

I do miss my wife. Often I find myself wishing that someone would throw her into the bottomless pit and we may some day be reunited.

I sometimes wonder how they knew it was a bottomless pit in the first place. Perhaps that was more PR. Such thoughts interfere with one's sleep and are best left alone.