Have you ever heard of black holes? Black holes sound like objects from a science fiction story. These objects are dark, dense regions in the universe, and their gravitational pull is so strong that nothing can escape them—not even light! This is why black holes are so black: without light, we cannot see them. Physicists think that black holes are some of the universe’s most exciting objects to study. Why? Because once something has fallen into a black hole, it can never return. And more fantastic still: the laws of physics do not tell us what happens when something falls into a black hole and reaches its center. In other words, black holes are huge cosmic mysteries. In this article, we present an analogy that helps us make sense of these mysteries. The analogy offers a new way of thinking about space and time.