Sometimes the author of Shitholes, in an effort to invoke mystery or flex his purple pen, is scant on details that would, to a more traditional travel writer, be of some importance. Forgetting the sheer size and mobility of a carnivorous tree, for instance, or neglecting to mention a plague of sinkholes in a town that doubles as the last fairway of a golf course that spans the nation (Par 6).
With a length of dry rope in my hands and a groaning sickness in my stomach, I consider that the author seems to have done justice to the condition of ‘The Place Over Another.’
‘‘The Place Over Another’ is hardly a place (it being a rickety tire swing anchored to a dying tree) and what exists under it is hardly a place either (it being an abyss).
This is not to say that they are not impressive.
The tire of the swing once belonged to a tractor and, as such, can comfortably contain the bulk of a child and a small pool of stagnant water that exists there in perpetuity. The weight of riding has pulled the tree from the earth such that it now leans over the abyss and touches down on the other side with a dainty branch. Its vast root system is exposed save for a single, thick tendril that holds it in place and provides it with the nutrition necessary for survival. In the autumn months this tree is known to dangle apples in precarious places and to drop them noiselessly into the ‘Other’ as though threatening (or simply warning away) onlookers. The knot of rope that clings to the tire has fused with age and water into a great, brittle lump of fiber that creaks with warning under the lightest load- that creaks, sometimes, without instigation.
The combination of these things cannot be called safe except to say that it has not yet failed.
The abyss is impressive in an altogether different sort of way. It is deep enough to be endless and dark save for a pinprick of light in the center that riders of the swing say is a keyhole view to another world, visible only from the top.
Nobody who has made this claim has yet traveled downward.’
The tire hung over the center of the abyss and was absolutely without movement when I arrived. With a long prodding stick and the better part of an hour I was able to set it in motion and to catch it without slipping a careless foot over the edge. Now I stand, the sweat of my palms seeping into the rope.
And I place a leg inside.
As my weight transfers to the cracked rubber the tire begins to drag itself back to the abyss and I let it drag me along, sending the prodder through its hollow diameter and bracing myself for the edge. There is a stab of regret when it comes- the phantom ‘what-if’ that haunts moments like these but I will it away and stare determinedly down, seeking the glimpse of another world and finding, like those before me, that it is only a reflection of ours in a pool of water and apples.
Having performed my due diligence, I settle into the tire and find an unlikely restfulness in its movement. I sleep above the abyss and the pond and the reflection of our sky- a series of nested circles like a great eye, below.
-traveler
