I am well enough, after a week in ‘The Watery Grave,’ to know that I am unwell. At the arrival of the man, the sane puppeteer inside me begins to put on a show, knowing that it will only have to be a civil 24 hours before I escape or die in escaping. My hand-strings tug and a voice comes from inside me:

“Hello,” it says, and it laughs lightly.

No stranger, this is, nevertheless, a strange man. He strips down to his sagging body and joins me in donning only underwear. I make room for him, for his things, and watch as he rolls out a blanket. The descent has left him entirely unscathed and, as though sensing my thoughts, he eyes me and says:

“Rough waters on your way down?”

My scabbed wounds crack quietly as I shift.

“It was narrower than I thought.”

“How long have you been down here.”

“Just a couple days,” I say.

I’m not sure why I lie.

The man hums a moment, the same tune.

“When are you thinking of going?”

“The next time,” I tell him, “Tomorrow.”

He nods and I add, “Not because of you.”

He nods again and he pulls out a harmonica.

“You play?” he asks, “Sing?”

“Neither.”

“Mind if I do?”

The sound of the harmonica in ‘The Watery Grave’ is maddening and inescapable but I listen, politely, sick on the inside like a rotten fruit. I stop him in between breaths.

“How did you get down so easily?” I ask.

“I’m a ghost,” he hums, “Come down to haunt the ‘Grave’ after perishing here myself.”

“Really?” I ask, because it’s hard to know what’s possible anymore.

“Nope,” he says, “But I’ve been down here a few times. Was worse off than you, I think.”

We’ve been avoiding direct eye contact, given the closeness of our quarters, but he turns to see me now with a look that it knowing, at first, and then, suddenly, concerned.

“How are you doing that?” he asks.

He leans forward, to look behind me, and then shifts back to dig in his bag. Before I can answer, he shines the beam of a little flashlight over my body and I cover myself, suddenly shy.

“You’re not casting a shadow,” he says, and though he chuckles as he says it, I see his frown hanging above the light.

“Yeah…” I say, “Weird, huh? Just, uh, happens.”

I wait for him to ask me about it but he doesn’t. He just nods and puts away his light. He pretends to read for a while, staring closely at the pages but rarely turning them. We exchange few words.

The man tries to escape while I sleep, leaving behind his bag and his harmonica, counting on his experience to guide him through the dark, waterlogged tunnel. I find him floating in the pool, one more hurdle to my exit.

-traveler

‘The Watery Grave’ is slick, at first, with blood from my various clam-wounds and with a half-stomachful of sea water. It is a difficult place to stand in, looking like some volcanic bubble, some still-born fart from the early, gassy days of the earth when things were still quiet and clean and smooth. I dreaded finding a body- I was sure I would, if not in the tunnel then certainly in the cavern itself, but there are no signs of life except my own. There is the sound of rushing water and sucking air as I watch the tunnel disappear under the black water. Then, the tunnel and the noise are gone, and I am left in absolute stillness.

I have packed well and learned the wisdom of catching my breath. I bandage my wounds and set up a modest camp, laying out blankets on the ground and making a table of my deflated pack. I eat a handful of a bland trail-mix that I make myself for times of lying low. It’s cheap mixture, caloric. Most importantly, it makes me want to not eat, it eventually becomes less desirable than going without.

Later, I am squatting awkwardly over a plastic bag, unable to find the proper balance for anything like a satisfying shit. My thighs ache terribly, my toes clenching and unclenching, shifting like worms in the dim light of my lantern. The only flat place in ‘The Watery Grave’ is the pool of water at the center, the flooded exit. At its fullest it is almost indiscernible from the stone- the potential for a twisted ankle in the short term, maybe a cause for madness over time.

Later, I have removed a marble from my pack, a thick, cat-eyed shooter. I roll it up the walls so that it rolls back. I am launching it in full circles by the time the water has drained halfway again, the marble spinning round and round the room and whizzing like a toy car and rattling at the stone’s invisible imperfections.

Later, the marble drops into the pool in the center and is swallowed, immediately, by the stillness there. I wade in, naked, the water rising to my stomach, and I grope with my feet.

Nothing.

I am startled by a sudden gasping, a sputter that sprays the unprepared stretches of skin across my upper half. I leap out of the water and see that the tunnel is reemerging, now. I watch it, a naked, suspicious man in a dark place. I realize I have not slept and that I am not tired.

There is a noise each time I turn off the light. Before, it was like the low hum of a distant lawn mower. Now it is the ghost of the marble, buzzing in constant circles. I try to sleep, but I wake often to the sound. The tunnel empties and refills in the dark interludes. I lie awake and grow claustrophobic, checking, often, that the pool is still there, that it has not moved. I dream of the sunrise and wake in the dark.

At its fullest, the pool in the center pushes just past the brim, a thin, black jell-o. I watch it and imagine its moving, or, it moves and I chock it up to my imagination. Claustrophobia gives way to boredom as several days pass. I write out song lyrics in dust- in the dust that must be shaking off of me. I forget to put on clothes and lose hours staring at the water.

Even though it’s dark.

Even though the water makes no sound, except for the awful sputtering that wakes me each time I start to doze.

When the shit-bag starts to outweigh the trail-mix, I consider emerging. A week has passed, according to my phone, and, though I have achieved a meditative calm, I recognize that it is being pressed and that it is fragile. To leave ‘The Watery Grave’ in a panic would be disastrous.

I give myself one more day and I start to pack and as I pack I hum a tune that I eventually hear, that I have been hearing and parroting for nearly half an hour. It is a man’s voice and it grows louder as I listen, louder and louder, though still very quiet. Louder relative to itself, and to everything else in the past week. I lean in close to the pool, which will begin its desperate coughing any moment, and I realize too late what is about to happen.

A man emerges with a massive splash, tossing a bag up onto the stone and twisting his shoulder-length hair into a pony-tail. He sees me, crouching in my underwear like some haunted goblin, and he smiles.

“Looks like we’re roomin’ for the night!”

The tunnel disappears below the water and the man begins to hum.

-traveler

I arrive at ‘The Watery Grave’ well before low tide and wait, for some time, for the water to ebb and slough off the rocks below the surface. It has been a scattered few weeks, with my shadow and the stranger (a shadow, of sorts, himself) a potential in any dark corner or unchecked crevice. Neither manifest and I wonder if I am lighter for all that the stranger is weighed down- able to move through the world with greater ease.

I don’t doubt that they are following, though, so I park the bike in a storage facility, in a room my family has rented but forgotten. There are pictures of me there, as a child, as a young, healthy man. I spend longer than I should, and then I set a course for a destination I have avoided many times, for having often been in the area.

‘As the sea pulls away from Clementine Rock, one might stop to marvel at the life left scurrying in the tide pools, this round’s losers of the reincarnation cycle. Marvel carefully, reader, for among those pools is a dark, lifeless place: ‘The Watery Grave,’ one of the world’s many dead-ends.

‘The Watery Grave’ is among the most literally named entries in this humble tome, having taken dozens of lives over the course of the last decade despite guards, warnings, and razored deterrents. It has developed twin reputations- one being that it is a spiritual place and the other being that is a challenge to survive. Those combined aspects are a catnip for a certain type of mid-twenties white college-goer, the kind of person looking to add to their repertoire of hostel stories or personally meaningful tattoos.

The spiritual stories describe the main cavern as a natural sanctuary, a wide, smooth room, cut off from the world by the ocean itself and totally still. Totally dark. Some, who have stayed a while in those depths, hear the ‘The Watery Song,’ an aural hallucination or a blessing, depending on who you ask. The challenge, assuming one has packed for their stay, is surviving the entry and exit, a trial that involves wading into the failing tide and riding the sinking water as it lowers you to its terminus, where a winding tunnel, sometimes just 3’ wide, leads to the sanctuary. This is the difficulty, a race against the water as it begins to rise again, faster than many think, cold, dark, and unrelenting.’

I step out to Clementine early as well, hefting my water-proofed bag over my head and slipping into the sea’s potholes, ending life there with sharp crunches. ‘The Watery Grave’ is easy enough to find- the ranger’s latest deterrent, an iron cage, has rusted and pulled away, standing like an apocalyptic tree in the waves.

I begin the descent, slowly, treading water and sputtering. The way down is narrow and sharp, lined with clams that click and clatter, that cut my arms and my feet until I am churning a pink froth. I consider going back, finding some other way to throw the stranger, but by the time I lose my nerve I see that I have sunk too low, that the only means of escape would be rescue.

The descent further narrows, a place where the clams have clambered over each other to squeeze off access. My bag will not fit as it is. I try to strip things out but the water drains quickly, it drains so that I am hanging by the bag itself for a moment. Something gives way and I fall, shredding the skin from my shoulders.

In time, I feel the bottom.

I start in the tunnel as soon as there is an inch of water to breathe, away from the sunlight, to a place where shadows cannot be cast.

-traveler

‘‘The Once-Quiet Clearing’ outside of Langston remained a secret in its prime, its location and existence guarded by the locals through a silent understanding: that it was too good for the world’s eye. It was maintained entirely by the care of its visitors, by the picnicking families and the amateur yogis and the various plant, bird, and cloud watchers. ‘The Once-Quiet Clearing’ provided a wholesome nothing- an empty space and the soft, general silence of a sleepy forest. More than that, ‘The Once-Quiet Clearing’ seemed to sand the edges off sound. Through some acoustical quirk, it was simply difficult to make noise there.

And then, there was a murder.

A man was stabbed to death with no fewer than 15 people in the nearby area, all of whom reportedly heard neither struggle nor scream. An investigation began, a suspect was apprehended, and the case was closed but not before the strange circumstances of the initial killing broke the monotony of a slow news day, first regionally and, eventually, nationally.

With that, the world’s eye turned and saw, for the first time ‘The Once-Quiet Clearing.’

The clearing’s silence became a novelty- a challenge. People arrived with every instrument of sound known to man and battled the noise-dampening effects as part of mystery-themed tour packages. A smaller sub-group of visitors came alone, looking for a place to make their confessions or tell their secrets. They knelt to the ground and whispered to the grass like members of a loose cult. After a year of these brutal attentions, ‘The Once-Quiet Clearing’ began to gray.

The clearing remains open and the way is well signed. It is still, for the most part, a quiet place. These days, the clearing is better known for a distinctive rattle- the rustle of dried leaves and browned grass. It is an autumnal sound, initially soothing, but increasingly like the deep cough of the profoundly ill. It is a place, now, that sours thoughts.

-excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

“A man’s shadow is his worst self,” the stranger says, placing himself in front of the exit, “And yours has been sticking to my feet like dog shit since ‘The Edge of Disaster.’”

I look around for a weapon, for anything that isn’t made of wax. A fire extinguisher falls to pieces in my hands and the stranger frowns when I throw the largest at him. The chunk of wax crashes into the wall over his left shoulder and shatters further.

“I don’t know how you live with this,” he says, gesturing to my shadow, “I didn’t know a man could cause himself so much suffering.”

The room’s lighting dims and twists into prisms as his shadow extends into a pool at my feet.

“You were trailing things when this happened,” he continues, “And, would you know it, those things are trailing me now. This spot o’ haze has been dragging like an anchor all these long months, shortening my days like a head cold. And the money I’ve spent trying to banish the thing… Turns out, a spare shadow might as well be a sign hanging about my neck: ‘This man’s got an expensive problem.’”

My own feet move lethargically. The stranger’s shadow holds them to the floor.

“I hit up every mystic between here and Boston before I started to wonder if maybe this weren’t the only hanger-on. So I come here, and I see this building, and I see this display, and I see the one in the next room too. Walk with me, old friend.”

The stranger moves from the door and I leap for it, falling flat in the stretch between. He pays no attention, and as he walks I feel myself dragged, and as I drag, the light changes to accommodate the opposing shadows.

I slide through a doorway and down a set of three cement stairs, rolling to a stop at my own wax feet. In this room, I am shown in the lobby of ‘The World in Wax.’ I am politely declining membership.

“And, how about the next?” the stranger asks.

His shadow drags me through another doorway, into a dark room with a raised display. Propped on my elbows, I am level with the eviscerated stranger. He lies on the floor of a dirty public restroom, empty except for a pair of legs visible from under the door of a stall. The legs are all bone and tight, white skin, bound together by dusty blue jeans and old, leather shoes.

A sliver of dread pierces me.

“What is it?” I ask, “Did they model it? Do you know what it is?”

“You didn’t know?” he asks, shoving the door open, “It’s your goddamn worst self.”

The thing in the stall is undoubtedly me- a me with matted hair and a stomach that bulges obscenely. My wax mouth gapes for missing teeth and thick lumps, like bug bites, darken my arms.

“That’s what’s following me now,” he says, “That’s what was following you before. You’ve got a shadow so mean it gambled against you when I pushed you off into that storm. It left you for dead. Now, I need you to take it back.”

“Do you have one of those?”

“I’m the worst me there is, now, take it back.”

“Is…”

“Look,” the stranger says, his voice growing quiet and serious, “I’ve not been still more than three days before that thing shows up and I’ve been waiting here for you just about as long. You best-”

In his hush, we both hear the creak of the front door, two rooms behind us. I scramble to my feet and topple again as the stranger steps backward into a corner. His shadow tightens and holds me in place, an inky vice. Footfalls approach, slow and quiet. A floorboard groans in the next room.

“Someone there?”

A man in security uniform peers around the door frame, clearly unaccustomed to threats at ‘The World in Wax.’ He sees me on the floor and, as he swings his flashlight around to the stranger, its beam cuts through the shadow holding me.

The stranger shouts but I am well on my way before either of the men can react. There is a collision of bodies behind me, and a struggle, but nobody stops me in my hasty retreat from ‘The World in Wax.’

-traveler

‘‘The World in Wax’ holds dearly to its ‘number four’ ranking in ‘Travelz Magazine’s Top Places of Nominal Interest to Those with Eccentric Tastes,’ an award given once just before the magazine (and the industry surrounding it) folded like the cheap paper it was printed on. It is a sprawling complex, surrounded by the suburbs that seep out of Greenville and lit up massively at night.

The psychic, Alyssa Crystal, and her unspeaking husband have voiced and gestured ‘deep, spiritual concerns’ regarding ‘The World in Wax.’ In a 2013 interview, Ms. Crystal would say only ‘It is too knowing, as a place,’ and Mr. Crystal would later agree, coughing loudly into the microphone and waggling his eyebrows.

Stripped of context, ‘The World of Wax’ is simply a large, themeless wax museum that prides itself on accurate depictions of normal people doing normal things. Most visitors will enter and leave without a second thought but others, those who recognize loved ones among the varied wax statues, may reel at the accuracy at which they are portrayed and wonder at the so-called ‘normalcy’ of their fellow man.’

Alice chooses ‘The World in Wax’ when I am left, aimless, at the steps of ‘The Park Ranger Retreat Grounds,’ one of the spilled toothpicks having slid between the pages and pierced an unmarked entry. It’s a long drive, likely with many potential stops in-between, but I am superstitious as it suits me and I believe in Alice, the ghost of a woman I never met, like some believe in God.

I arrive early on a Thursday morning and wait behind a group of elderly women who glance nervously between themselves and say nothing except the few words necessary to purchase their entry tickets. The man behind the counter tries to sell me a membership and I decline, though I am surprised to learn no single exhibition is up for more than a month.

“What do they do with all the old figures?” I ask.

“Melt them down,” he shrugs, “Reuse the wax,” and, while I don’t think that is feasible or true, I nod and move on.

Past the small lobby, I enter onto the grounds with its myriad buildings and walk among the stiff, waxen grass that rattles warily in the shifting air. Alice, between my teeth, offers no particular lead so I pick my own way through the complex, admiring, for a while, the scene of a grisly crime, a frozen day at the beach, and a tired looking wax figure looking over a newspaper on the toilet.

The size of the complex is staggering and, without clearly marked paths or printed guides, I am left to determine what is and isn’t an exhibit on my own though, as time passes, it becomes clear that everything at ‘The World in Wax’ is made for viewing. Wax leaves gather in gutters and wax roaches huddle between dusty cans in a wax grocery. I peer through the just-parted shades of a window and spy a wax couple in bed, with seemingly no other viewpoint available. One of the men’s eyes are opened, as though startled by me, a noise outside their window.

Eventually I catch up to the older women, they having huddled around another bedroom scene, this one in plain view. They are locked in a soft-spoken argument, their voices like slippered footfalls, and I eavesdrop from a polite distance. I gather that they recognize the figures there and I walk over, as though innocently making my way through.

“Don’t let him look!” one of the women snaps to another but they, as a whole, seem at a loss as to what to do. I am a dirty-looking man, a stranger to them, and they don’t know I am a coward, that I would be turned away with a single stern word.

“Doesn’t matter,” another says, “Harold’s the one putting himself on display.”

I pretend not to hear any of this in a way that I’m not sure is totally convincing and they press to the wall in order to allow me my look. An elderly man sits up in his bed, nude except for a modest portion of sheet pulled over his legs. Lying near him is a woman- she reaches out to stroke his back.

A sign above the scene reads: ‘Infidelity.’

I give the women their privacy again and wander back toward the exit, stopping, on a whim, at a building labeled ‘Roadside Attractions.’ There, in the first room, an incredible reproduction of the stranger, of the first stranger, stares into a frozen campfire. The backend of his pick-up truck protrudes from the wall and his thick shadow spreads itself across the ground behind him. Ignoring the security cameras (which are suspiciously waxen themselves), I step into the edge of display to see what strange haul the man carries in his truck these days. There, in wax chunks, is a second stranger, its split head bearing the same pensive frown as the living man that now stands from where he sat.

“I have something,” he says, “That I think belongs to you.”

His shadow frays and mine emerges, as though from underneath, pinned under the stranger’s heavy, black soles.

-traveler

I am accustomed to surprises, this far into my travels, but I have not grown to like them. I am greeted by many of the rangers like a lost child- like a child that has been lost for an hour or so- like a child that was lost for such a short amount of time, nobody noticed until he returned. Their friendliness is a little too sweet. They use small words and short, sticky sentences when they speak to me. Most of the conversations I have are short, and most consist mainly of greetings and goodbyes as the man from the front, Ranger Chuck, leads me to a warm office in the back.

“Got a picture of you from the last time,” he says, settling in behind his desk and gesturing for me to take a chair opposite.

He spins a framed photograph around so I can see it- Ranger Chuck with someone who could certainly be me.

“It’s blurry,” I tell him.

“Well,” he says, a frown turning his face for just a moment, “Ranger Paul got his finger in the corner there and it threw the focus off.”

He leans back and stretches, straining the plastic office chair, and says nothing.

“So… can you explain this to me?” I ask after several, quiet seconds, “Is this time travel or amnesia or something?”

“Not totally sure,” he says, brushing invisible dust from his desktop, “You just show up here out of the blue every so often without any rhyme or reason, telling us the box up in Birch sent you. Thought it was a joke at first but…”

He pauses.

“Well, what would be the point? And you’re earnest, kid. Damned earnest.”

“Earnest?”

“Not in the typical way. You’re a real sourpuss much of the time, but you seem like the type that believes what he says.”

“What do I say?”

“You tell us what you’ve seen out on the road, mostly. Remind everyone to read your blog.”

“And you do?”

“Well… let’s say I’m a little behind.”

“So you know nothing about this?”

“Not nothing,” he says, “You ready for the ranger spiel?”

“Sure.”

“The Wayside Park Rangers is an international organization established to preserve the world’s eccentricities. In practice, it’s several loosely connected sects of conservationists with niche interests. We operate behind the curtains for the most part, not because we’ve got any ‘cloak-and-daggers’ agenda, but because drawing attention to the places we protect tends to be contrary to their conservation. We operate on donations and pay next to nothing, if you’re thinking about asking for a job.”

“And where do I fit in?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? The latest theory is, well, you know something about the ‘path,’ don’t you?”

“Something.”

“About as much as we do, I imagine, which is to say that it probably exists. We stumbled upon it as we started to digitize our records into a single, central database- the same names popping up in registers over and over again, like people were following some sort of guide.”

I start to pull Shitholes from my bag and he smiles.

“We know about your book and it’s not that. Or, it might be that now, but our records suggest this has been going on since before it saw the printer. Folks- certain folks- are drawn to these places.”

“And that’s the path.”

“That’s what seems like a ‘path.’”

“Is there a… direction?”

“That was our next question. Looks like: yes. We’re still working on just which way it leads, however. Lost a lot of files to rats, fires- you name it. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle but you’ve got to wander around finding the pieces as you do.”

“So, I’m one of these people?”

“You are,” he says and, sensing what I hoped was a very private disappointment, he adds, “But there’s something more to your case. Yours and a few others. The way we figure it, there are four types of people involved in this mess about the path. There are the rangers, of course, who look after it, the ‘tourists,’ who walk it and don’t realize, the travelers, people like yourself that move with a bit more intent and…”

“The strangers.”

“The strangers,” he agrees,” Who seem to want to tear the whole thing apart. You were the first to turn us on to them, actually, and, sure enough, the moment you start looking at disasters along the path, you get these descriptions of short-haired men and jerry cans.”

“What are you doing about it?”

“Well,” he sighs, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he confirms.

“But-”

“I know, because I’ve heard it from your own mouth, why they don’t fight forest fires in Yellowstone. Care to remind me?”

I frown and say nothing.

“Turns out, we’re not always as smart as we think we are. Sometimes a problem is just another part of a well-oiled machine, complex beyond our current understanding. The path is complex, [traveler], and we understand almost nothing about it.”

“So you let them… burn things?”

“And we let you wander in and out of here on a whim, my friend. We let you tout your book and your blog and we let you think you know more than us even though you show up here knowing less than when you left.”

“You think I am part of the path?”

“Son, your name come up so often in our registers that you might as well be paving the thing yourself.”

-traveler

‘The author would like to thank his many generous hosts, if not in person then now, in the pages of a book they will likely never read. It is easier, this way, if not more meaningful.

This author recognizes the works of others that have helped along the way: ‘The Field Guide to Talking Stones,’ ‘Oh, A Ghost,’ ‘The Electric Journal of Rip Stevens,’ ‘Runes, Helpful and Otherwise,’ ‘Birds to Watch and Birds to Watch Out For,’ and ‘The Visual Guide to Eating Things Off the Ground.’ There are countless others.

The author commends the determination of his family, who continue to search after all these long years. I’m sorry, mom- I could not find the way home if I tried.

The author begrudgingly acknowledges the work of the Park Rangers, who are certainly a lesser evil. He would remind them that the Wayside is no more a place to be tamed than it is to be burned, but appreciates the rescue and medical care provided after his little tumble into the ‘Miniature Grand Canyon’ and the subsequent safety railing installed in his honor.  

He would not want others to get hurt along the same path.’

-excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

‘If ritual magic is anything like making bread, which is to say all it requires is the correct physical components moved in specific ways and under specific circumstances, then it follows that someone could eventually build a ‘bread machine.’ Imagine a series of rune-carved gears, a pre-programmed voicebox, a selection of turning crystals, and a liquid piping system to rival a modern espresso dispenser, all acting to mirror the magician’s dramatic flourishes and guarded recipes. Magic, broken down in such a way and re-constructed with an eye to practicality, becomes less flavorful almost as a necessity, but it does not disappear altogether and that distinction presents an opportunity for those of us who like bread, but do not have the patience to bake it.

A legitimate ‘bread machine’ is said to exist as a bygone relic in the City Museum of Birch, Colorado. ‘The Birch Fortune Box’ might well be a clever campaign to drum up donations for the Historical Society, offering a pay-what-you-will price structure that does not leave room for doubt as to whether the quality of a fortune will be directly related to the generosity of the person requesting it.’

If I could be described as having a set ‘way,’ Birch, Colorado and its rundown museum would very much be out of it. Accessible only by the most tenuous of mountain passes, I spend three days in a dirty motel to the east before the current storm weakens enough to allow for traffic through to the town and I find, upon arriving at another, dirtier motel, that the pass has closed neatly behind me like a set of ominous supermarket doors.

Birch is little more than a gas station, a bar, and a handful of houses loosely connected by a series of roads that disappear under the snow in the hour or so it takes me to settle into the room and shower. I see no one younger than 40 for as long as the sun is up.

Shortly after dark, the lights in the motel flicker and go out. From the window I see they are out all over town and I have resigned myself to three granola bars and an early night when the woman from the front desk knocks at my door with a bowl of soup and an extra blanket. She tells me they’ll have the generator on before long and she laughs when I tell her I plan on seeing the museum in the morning.

“Tomorrow’s Christmas Day,” she says, “And Charlie’s spending it with family. He won’t be back to open the museum till the storm clears.”

The storm continues for four days and I rest in a room that is often, that is almost always, warm. I build a snowman and I become known around town- a well-mannered stranger that has become trapped by the storm. People learn that I’ve come to visit the Box and the anticipation of my fortune seems to grow with each passing day, not because they truly believe in the power of the thing (though some surely do) but because the novelty of my situation eases the monotony of a frozen town.

The woman that owns the motel (I’ve never asked her name) comes to my room at 8:00am on the fifth day.

“Charlie came in late last night and I’ll be damned if Linda weren’t at his door at the crack of dawn this morning to get those museum doors open. Best be headin’ down there or he’ll be short with you for all the hubbub you’ve caused.”

It is not my way, to cause undue hubbub, so I leave for the museum a half hour later and find Charlie is short with me anyway (who can blame him) and make my way into a basement where The Birch Fortune Box collects dust.

It is an old, iron thing with a slot like a postal box for taking money and a slot like a papercut for distributing fortunes. I carefully slip a twenty dollar bill inside and then haphazardly dig the change out of my pockets and out of the pockets of my bag and, finally, I add a dime from under the Fortune Box’s informational sign.

I approach the Box’s heavy crank, nearly four feet in diameter, and turn it only a few inches before there is a click and the tinkle of some hidden bell and I see my fortune peering out from the ancient metal.

“Attempt 31,” it says, “Seek the Park Rangers for assistance.”

There is an address on the back.

-traveler

‘In the same way a book written on lead might be called the world’s densest novel, ‘Uncommon Hazards’ claims to be the nation’s most challenging round of miniature golf. It is a grueling experience (in ways which the author will reluctantly leave unspoiled for those who wish to visit) that only lightly wears the skin of golf, but it must be admired for the thoroughness with which it achieves its vision. ‘Uncommon Hazards’ employs blurred lines and psychic gut punches in the humble task of adding a few points to your score. Its courses are degrading and its staff is apathetic at best.  It is not a game any sane person would play twice.’

Without the author’s warning I would have assumed that when, on the first green, my ball was sucked up into the mouth of a cement clown where it was subjected to some sort of industrial grinder and returned a lopsided mess, that there had been some sort of mistake, that I would be issued a replacement. Thanks to the author, I was not surprised when an employee told me I would not get a refund, but that she would waive the ‘Ball Replacement Fee’ since the damages may have been due, in part, to the facilities and not entirely to my neglect. I putt the non-spherical ball in circles around the smiling clown while an angry man and his two daughters respectively huff and whine, waiting their turn behind me.

First round: 25

The second course is a clear, straight rectangle just ten feet long but the moment I approach the green a siren goes off and I’m asked to evacuate. I stand in the parking lot with someone who claims to be a manager for 15 minutes before he, having received no clear indication from anything inside the establishment, suggests we return. When we do, I find the second green is littered with invisible magnets, the most powerful of which is embedded in the hole itself, meaning that my final shot is actually just my having to press the levitating ball (presumably containing a magnetic core) forcibly into the ground for a few seconds so that it ‘counts.’

Second round: 31

I spend forty minutes in the liminal space between courses as a young man ahead of me talks loudly on his phone, which he holds pinched between his head and his shoulder as he attempts to play the round. He drops the phone every few minutes and dusts it off, continuing the conversation as though nothing had happened to interrupt it. The green is simple enough- crooked in several places and dotted with small, cement obstacles. The man weaves his ball around them over and over, unable to muster the fine motor coordination necessary to guide the thing to its goal as long as he’s preoccupied with the call.

At the forty minute mark I see that the man’s ball has not received the same rough handling in the mouth of the clown as mine and I take to the green myself, lining up a careful ricochet.

The man protests:

“Hey! I’m not quite done here buddy!” he says to me, and then, to his phone: “Yeah, some asshole’s trying to cut me in line at Hazzards.”

It does give me pause, but I take the shot and continue taking shots as the man’s outrage grows, as he waves his phone and hurls insults and generally hovers about- never stopping me physically but doing his best to disrupt me at every turn.

Third round: 12 (and over an hour of my time)

I’ve set up on the fourth course, which appears to be a series of sand-filled tubes, when the father and his daughters reappear behind me and take up their act again. One of the girls stands so close that I feel the leg of her plush horse graze the back of my knee and the man’s salty breath rustles my hair and all of the stress of today and of days before comes to an explosive head.

I shout at them, first degrading their employment at the course and briefly veering into broader, less meaningful abuse before receiving a powerful blow to the jaw and being escorted from the premises where a manager and I spend 30 minutes hashing out whether this is being done ‘in character’ or if this is an official banishment from the establishment.

It is the latter.

I walk back across the parking lot, fingering the lopsided golf-ball in my pocket, and find the bike silent, as it has been for several weeks.

-traveler