"The Blue Hole Boys/The Fugu Feast (Double Feature)" by T.N.Collie (Short Stories)

Genre:  Literary Fiction

Type of Short Story:  Short Stories

Summary:  "The Blue Hole Boys"- a short story inspired by the true event of two brothers who went missing in an Andros forest. This fictionalized account of the adventure is from the perspective of the two young boys as they find themselves lost deep in an unfamiliar forest, waiting to be rescued.

"The Fugu Feast"- prize-winning tale originally published in On the Premises magazine, this story is an inside look at a suicide camp. 

Excerpt:

Damien didn’t care if the mango juice covered half his face and made his hands and cheeks sticky—he was starving.

He didn’t think about the various piles of feces he and his brother had left in the Androsian pit, having nowhere else to leave them and nothing much to wipe with, surrounded by small glossy leaves, mounds of damp dirt, and swollen ripe fruit.

Mango used to be Damien’s favorite fruit—both the smaller, ovoid, yellow ones and the large, multicolor, more rounded ones—but he wasn’t so sure he could eat them again if he and his brother ever escaped; his stomach now got sick from them, but they were the only food and drink besides the small, yellow pigeon plums that fell in from trees above.

Damien was grateful for the visible chunk of clear aqua sky and the armies of trees all around above them, but he couldn’t see how it was possible to climb out of the hole he and his little brother had fallen in.

From day one he was sorry he’d brought Mikey along—only six, Mikey couldn’t stop crying although he pretended bravery sometimes, frequently offering up stupid, hopeful suggestions. At first Damien got mad at him, but then he remembered the three years he had on his brother—of course he was smarter. If Damien had fallen into a pit at six like Mikey, he too might have suggested they practice jumping so they could jump high enough to bound out of the bushy pit one day. Perhaps he too would have thought one of them could stand on the other’s shoulders and they could get out that way—although that suggestion wasn’t so stupid; Damien had actually tried it, managing to hoist Mikey onto his shoulders, but the pit was deeper than their combined eight-foot height. If Damien had been six, maybe he also would’ve kept saying their parents would find them soon, then cry quietly in a corner when he thought his big brother wasn’t looking.

Damien had lost count of how long they’d been in the hole. He remembered night falling without their parents finding them, then another day, then another night and day. Then days and nights began running together in his head. Perhaps they were on day eight by now.

“Mikey, how long we been down here?”

His brother looked up from nibbling on plums.

“Six days,” he said with finality after a few seconds.

Damien felt surprised. But then again, what did a six-year-old know? Mikey couldn’t even remember not to put his hands in his hair after eating a mango so that when he slept through the cool night, leaves wouldn’t stick to it.

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