Today, I found myself nostalgically browsing through my old copy of «The Great Book of Moomin», when I came over an illustration showing Moomin and companions being sucked into the vacuum-cleaner of a cleaning-hemul. Faced with this picture, I could recall the younger me finding this particular image positively terrifying – it had, so many years ago, stirred awake and brought out some blunt childish fear of simply being sucked into things.
Weather or not the given Janson-illustration could be traced back to be the source of this peculiar imaginative scenario of angst, is not for me to discover. The sight of it, nonetheless, immediately had me alluding to similar worries for mine – past and present. Memories of the twisted scream the fabric of ones clothes produce as they are air-torn into the toothless mouth of the vacuum-cleaner, had me thinking of washing cloths together with bath water being forcefully drawn down the holes of the drain, and the sudden sickness to one’s stomach from the surprise of how much power one must put in to drag it free again. Terrifying. I was convinced that down that tiny drain would disappear not only me, but any given gigantic grown up.
In addition, it could be worth mentioning me nurturing the fear of being slurped into and devoured by a bowl of soup (I saw this happen on TV once), being sucked into and captured by our old computer (a brief phase during the mid 90′s), getting drawn up into an alien space ship and, being eaten by an old, green woolen blanket that never seemed to want to let go of me once I had it wrapped around me.
As the years have gone by, I have been able to add to my list the anxiety of being drawn into claustrophobic MR-machines, driven into mile long tunnels and evaporating into a black hole. When swimming outside in a nearby lake, I used to be convinced the muddy bottom would collapse – my feet dangling above the endless depths suddenly revealed. In the less physical manner, I have come to shun the deep holes of depression and occasional holes in memory – these will only increase proportionally.
The last hole you are hauled into is the grave. It is not one of great depth – merely six feet – but this is also irrelevant. It is a hole you fill, but at the same time one you leave in others. There are no shrieks – it is muffled, it is dark, but not endless. And it does not require vacuuming.
