The Impossible Hallway
George storms into Jerry's apartment and slams the door so hard that the photo next to it falls off the wall.
"Well hello to you too," says Jerry.
"We need to talk about your hallway," says George.
"What about it?"
"It can't exist!"
"And yet," replies Jerry smugly, "it does."
"It does, but it shouldn't."
"What are you talking about?"
Kramer slides so violently into the apartment that he burns two long black streaks into the hardwood floor. He looks down at the smoke and whimpers, "oh mama."
"Kramer, what the hell?" says Jerry. "Look what you did to my floor!"
"Put it on my tab," says Kramer as he strolls over to the fridge and opens it to get himself some orange juice, drinking a long swig directly from the carton.
"I'll add the orange juice too."
"For starters," says George, ignoring Jerry's interaction with Kramer, "just look at your kitchen."
"First it's the hallway, now it's the kitchen. What's wrong with my kitchen?"
"Well for one thing," says Kramer, "your orange juice is expired."
Frowning at him, Jerry grabs the carton and drops it into the garbage with a slight flourish. "Thanks for the update—I'll take it off your tab."
"What tab?" asks Kramer, much to Jerry's exasperation.
George strolls all the way into the kitchen. "Look at where I'm standing and then think about where your hallway would go."
"I'd like to remind you that you never actually have been an architect."
"Humor me."
"The hallway is outside my apartment. The kitchen is inside my apartment."
George holds up a finger. "Come with me."
He walks to the front door, opens it, and stands in the doorway with one foot inside Jerry's apartment and the other out in the hallway. "Stand where I am and you'll see what I see."
"Okay, Confucious."
George steps away and Jerry takes his place.
"Hold on," says Jerry. "That doesn't… what the hell is going on here?"
"See?"
"But how?"
"Black hole," says Kramer.
George and Jerry both turn slowly to look at him.
"Excuse me?" says George.
Kramer makes a popping sound by flicking his finger out of the corner of his mouth. "Black hole!" he repeats, shaking that same finger high up into the air.
"What black hole?"
"The black hole," says Kramer with very deliberate enunciation and a waving gesture, "in my apartment."
"What are you talking about?" asks Jerry.
"I've told you about this!"
"I think I'd remember if you told me you had a black hole in your apartment."
"Oh I'm not sure you would."
Jerry shakes his head. "What's a black hole got to do with any of this?"
"Well you see, Jerry, all particles have to travel along the shortest path through curved space."
Jerry and George share a confused glance.
"…and?" prompts Jerry.
"Well… the black hole is warping space around itself. It's pulled the hallway—" he makes a motion like he's stroking an inner tube around his waist. "And apparently your kitchen, too. Which means… mamacita."
"What?" asks George.
"Oh, this is real bad."
"What's bad?" asks Jerry.
"Would you spit it out?" says George.
"It's getting… bigger," he replies, the last word a barely-perceptible squeak.
"Bigger?"
He nods, his face a mask of frightful agony.
"What does that mean, 'bigger'?" asks Jerry.
"The opposite of small," says George wryly.
"A little help?" shouts Elaine from somewhere out in the hallway.
The three poke their heads out to find her struggling to pull her purse away from the wall.
"It's stuck!" she says. She looks at Kramer. "What do you, got some kind of giant magnet in there or something?"
"Black hole," say the three men in unison. They glance briefly at each other.
"What?"
"Kramer has a black hole," says Jerry.
Elaine frowns skeptically at them. "You can't just have a black hole."
"I beg to differ," says Kramer. "I bought it at a flea market."
"Aw, this is ridiculous," says Jerry.
"Are you… all just gonna… stand there and… watch me struggle?" grunts Elaine between tugs. She raises her foot and brings it toward the wall to try to get some more leverage.
"Oh I wouldn't do—" starts Kramer, but it's too late: Elaine's foot gets stuck to the wall alongside her purse.
"Hey," she says, "I think my foot's stuck too."
"Yeah, that'll happen," says Kramer.
"Will you jackasses do something already?"
George and Jerry look to Kramer, but he just stares dumbly at Elaine, ignorant of their attention. After a moment he notices their stares with a jerky startle.
"What are you looking at me for?" he says.
"It's your black hole!" says Jerry.
George frowns. "How did it 'grow' exactly anyway?"
"What do you think happens to all the stuff I drag in from the street? I only have so much room in my apartment."
"What about—I don't know—throwing it in the garbage?"
"What, and haul it all the way down to the curb in the elevator? I get nasty looks!"
"Yeah, this is much better," says Jerry.
"So what do we do about Elaine?" asks George.
Kramer thinks for a moment, then snaps his fingers. "I got it—we put a second black hole in Jerry's apartment on the other side of the hallway."
"Won't that just rip me in half?" says Elaine.
Kramer shrugs. "Maybe, maybe not."
"Hold on a minute," says George. "How do you get away from it, Kramer? Clearly you're able to leave your apartment."
"I just move faster than light."
"Excuse me?"
"Well, the escape velocity of a black hole is faster than the speed of light. You gotta go at least that fast or you can't get out."
"But you can't go faster than the speed of light," says Elaine.
"Oh, I beg to differ."
"How?"
"Kwisatz Haderach," says Kramer with dramatic enunciation.
"Gesundheit," says Jerry.
"'Quick-shots' what, now?" says Elaine.
Kramer holds up a finger. "The shortening… of the way."
"What way?" asks George.
"Any way."
"Okay," says Jerry, "so how exactly does one shorten a way?"
"Well, you gotta become the Kwisatz Haderach."
"And how exactly do you do that?" asks Elaine, tugging frantically at her leg.
"The sleeper must awaken."
Elaine lets out a primal growl of annoyed frustration. "And how do you do that?"
"You gotta drink the water of life."
"What's the water of… you know what? Forget it. I'd rather stay stuck here forever than continue this idiotic conversation."
"Kramer," says Jerry, "can't you just 'Quiznos hot-rocks' her out of there?"
"Kwisatz Haderach," he says. "Say it with me, Kwis—"
"Kramer!"
He flinches from Jerry's angry interruption and then thinks for a moment. "I can try I guess but who knows where she'll end up."
"It's gotta be better than being stuck to your hallway wall!" says Elaine.
"Okay, well… don't say I didn't warn you." He stands upright, his eyes turning a deep blue. There's a distant rumble and suddenly Elaine fades away from where she's standing and fades in cradled in Kramer's arms. The two stare at each other for a moment.
"Ahem," says Elaine eventually.
Kramer looks at her, puzzled, until she nods her head toward the floor.
"Oh. Yeah," he says, setting her down.
"I still don't get it," says Jerry. "How did a black hole make it so that my kitchen and the hallway were occupying the same space?"
"It didn't," says Kramer. "It just made it appear that way to any… outside observers."
He smiles directly at the camera and winks as the audience breaks into hysterical laughter. He stares for so long that eventually the camera begins to pan away, but he strides toward it, his smile flattening, ducking back into frame as it shifts left and right. Soon the laughter in the audience dies out and transforms into a concerned murmur.
A deep hum begins to emanate almost imperceptibly from your television but grows louder and louder. Something begins to rattle and you realize it's the remote control on the table in front of you. Paralyzed by fear and confusion, you don't even think to reach for it as it lifts up and flies across the room, shattering against the screen, spraying plastic shards throughout the room.
As Kramer stares out at you, his eyes radiating an unearthly but somehow soothing blue glow, you finally motivate your body to rush over and turn off the television, but as you stand up and lunge for the power button, your fingers stretch into impossibly long strands, tapering into what looks like spaghetti. When the tips connect with the glass of the screen you somehow become aware that this same experience is being shared by millions of other people all around the world.
You scream, but the sound gets sucked in by whatever force seems to be pulling in the rest of you.
In all your terror you'd forgotten about the deep hum but it soon becomes deafening, pushing all the thoughts out of your mind. As your face draws closer and closer to those pulsing blue eyes, your inner monologue echoes somewhere inside your head, thinking,
Where does that hallway go to?
Where does that hallway go to?
Where does that hallway go to?
Where does that hallway go to?
Am I right or am I wrong?
My god… what have I done?
