There are a number of would-be Wayside attractions that are strange in name alone. Mystery sites tend to be the worst offenders and I am a perpetual victim, not because I find the tricks particularly difficult to situate in my knowledge of physics and perspective, but because each site tends to throw its own bent on the why of the mystery. I’ve been to a place that claimed and alien ship had touched down on the spot and changed the very nature of the ground it briefly rested upon. I’ve been to any number of places that claim to be burial grounds- of local celebrities, of native peoples, and of family members. More modern sites will sometimes skew a little sci-fi, offering a technobabble monologue for the strangeness that almost, but doesn’t quite, actually explain anything.
Most of all, I like these places because they are safe. Each is a known quantity and I can let my guard down and enjoy the bored teenage workers and the gaudy, aging sets, and the dramatic reactions of children and adults who lose themselves more fully to whatever flavor of mystery is on the menu.
‘The Living Statuary’ is not a mystery area. It isn’t advertised as such. It attempts no explanation as to its name nor purpose. Even the guide is tight-lipped:
‘Signs at the gate indicate that ‘The Living Statuary’ opens well after sunrise and closes before twilight. Like a public park, there is no particular enforcement of the hours and unlike a public park, there is very little understanding as to what threatens an afterhours visitor.’
Unfortunately, I arrive at sunset and because ‘The Living Statuary’ is far from just about anything else, I determine it would be a massive waste of time to not enter and, without thinking about it too hard, acknowledge that I’m willing to put my life on the line to avoid such a waste. I do pack my ‘danger bag’ which, over the years, has come to include several flashlights, extra water, a secondhand and often-wrong GPS system, a whistle, and a handgun I retrieved from the top of a pillar that has not been cleaned or fired since coming under my ownership but nevertheless signifies to certain dangerous persons that I might mean business.
I look at the handgun, thrown loosely in the bag with the other items, and wonder if I actually do mean business.
Probably not.
The statues cast long shadows in the fading sun, their arrangement in such precise rows that the pattern is dizzying. They are eerie, the way any statue is in the dark, but none sport the red flags of immediate danger, such as holding weapons or leaking fluid or posing in such a way that suggests they were once people, turned to stone against their will. I turn away once and turn back again, checking the statues against the careful mental photograph I hold in my head. None seem to have moved.
That’s that.
I pass through ‘The Living Statuary’ unbothered and, finding it goes on much further than I expected, determine to make it to the end and back, at least. The rows are straight enough that I can still spy the dull brown of the camper behind me and, though we have entered twilight, truly, now, the light isn’t such that it’s hard to navigate. By the time I reach the end and turn around, I’m beginning to think that ‘The Statuary’ may even be a pleasant destination. I quiet the part of me that worries this may be some magic worked on me, that the ground itself may be convincing me to stay and accept peace and become a statue myself. It does raise the question, though.
Why is this as pleasant as it is?
The answer, I quickly realize, is heat. It’s a crisp autumn night and the wind, when it touches my face, is cold. But, in an open jacket and flannel beneath, I’m warm and comfortable. I’m warmed by the statues which, as I move my hand toward the nearest, a woman in a half-kneel, as though looking at a child, give off the heat of a living human.
I don’t touch the woman and I try to remember whether I’ve touched any of the statues. It seems impossible that I haven’t brushed up against them. Even less possible to make it to the camper without doing so again. Somewhere nearby, someone starts to cry. A voice only.
I run.
The voices come at once, either triggered by my clumsy retreat or by the final dying of the daylight. Gleeful cheers. Bursts of anger. Weeping. The statues begin to project the sounds of a crowd and their heat becomes sweltering. By the time I make it to the camper, the door is nearly too hot too handle. I wrench it open anyway and hope the heat hasn’t made it into the engine. I’m not sure the camper has ever driven outside autumn. I’m not sure how it reacts to warmth.
The camper starts on the third try, a dramatic habit is has even in the best of times. I accelerate and leave ‘The Living Statuary’ to bake under the moonlight.
-traveler
