“Traveler,” the radio cracks, “Traveler.”

“What do you want?”

“What do you want?” it asks, “You don’t look so well, traveler. You look sick.”

“It took you a while to get here.”

“It doesn’t take me any time to get anywhere. You know that as well as me.”

“Well it took you some time to speak up.”

…

“Where are we, traveler? It’s dark here.”

“Shitty hotel.”

“We’ve been here for a while, in the dark.”

“That’s what I was saying.”

“If you are not traveling, then I don’t know what to call you.”

“We’ll hit the road again once I’m better. No need to think up a new name.”

“Still…”

…

“Would music help you, mmm, traveler?”

“No.”

“Would cleaning up help the smell?”

“Are you offering?”

“I am not.”

…

It’s three days before I open the window, a few days longer before I turn the bolt in the door. I am gone long enough to get ice. My legs are still weak and the day is bright and painful. The world has taken on a foreign smell, not a pleasant one. Or else that’s me relative to the new freshness.

Yes, a moment’s investigation confirms it is me.

I hurry back.

The door to my room is ajar; did I leave it that way? It is only open a crack, hardly enough for a passerby to notice. Hardly enough to let in air. It’s the space left when a closed door doesn’t quite latch, or when a trespasser doesn’t want to make a sound. Closed, but for being open.

I push inside.

The room is thick with human evaporations, with sweat and feces and, distantly, with cigarette smoke. This is a dim place, a place that resists light. The bathroom door is closed and light seeps out between the cracks. There may have been movement there as I watched but, now the subject of my focus, the room pleas vacancy.

If only there were a window.

“Is it here?” I ask into the darkness.

The radio, improperly adapted to the wall socket, buzzes and pops. The lights in the hallways flicker.

“Is what here, traveler?”

There is movement in the bathroom, I see it again.

“It might be best if you close the door, traveler,” the radio says, “It is unhealthy to linger between spaces.”

“That’s not…”

Another movement in the bathroom, the sound of a cabinet quietly closing.

“You are still not well. Is it not my duty to remind you?”

“You’re supposed to warn me when something breaks in here too.”

“There is nobody but yourself here, traveler. Even I, by most definitions, am not where you are.” The radio laughs at this, “Heh, heh, heh.”

I hear the sound of a toilet seat dropping, the rustle and tear of toilet paper.

“There is something in the bathroom, I mean. Don’t you hear that?”

The voice is quiet for a moment and I assume it’s listening. As the moment grows longer I realize it has simply chosen to end the conversation. I stand alone with the thing until, against my better judgment, I slip inside and close the door, close and latch to banish whatever liminal space may have existed. In the failing confidence of my decision I feel my heartbeat, quick with fear and anticipation.

I start the coffeepot and wonder if one evil might provide respite from another. The thing in the bathroom quiets down, some. The door there is like the last, closed but unlatched. Tenuously open.

The wayside is a place for things we’ve forgotten or failed to do and as I travel here I find it difficult to see past my own failings, or, I suppose, to discern them from the successes I carry with me. In a place littered with broken bottles and used needles, things that jab and poke and hook into your soles, it’s hard to tell if you’re being followed or if you’re just dragging something behind you.

I’ve begun to understand that mine is the latter case.

The toilet flushes and I hear the too-friendly jingle of a belt. Inside, the thing stands and pulls faded jeans up over its pale, distended belly. Its movements are lazy and vulgar, its breathing deep and steady. The hairs on my arms prick up as I hear it splash its hands about in the sink. My own body is itching and sick.

I remember the ice, now half-melted. I make a cool rag with one eye on the bathroom door. I climb into bed, between the damp sheets, and I cover my face.

“Traveler?” the radio clicks, “Traveler? Should I still warn you when something is coming? Will you believe me when I say there is nothing?”

“Yes,” I say under the rag, “Sure.”

“There is nothing now, traveler. Nothing now or before.”

-traveler

It seems, at first, to be a field like any other. That is, weedy and dry. Maybe there are flowers but they are few and far between, dispersed widely so as to be entirely incidental and meaningless. A single flower, growing eternally as the sole representative of its kind in an otherwise empty acreage, might raise an eyebrow. A few intermittent flowers in a field mean nothing, except, perhaps, to the particularly sentimental.

When the sun reaches as certain angle over the field, however, the ground begins to shine. It becomes, all at once, almost unseeable in its shining, illuminated by what seems to be a thousand tiny diodes. The field becomes impossible to approach.

No, not impossible.

Uncomfortable.

Years of sunblock adverts, skin-cancer PSAs, and embarrassing tan lines have left me distrustful of the sun and of anything that will magnify and reflect it. The ocean, for instance, and snowdrifts that remain on the clear days that follow a storm. I do not like looking at the sun and I don’t like feeling, sometimes, that the sun is looking back.

The effect of the field is a narrowing of that poisonous gaze and, backed by oncologists and screaming, dying ants around the world, I wait until the sun is differently angled before I approach. In the meantime, I read:

‘It is the pennies, not the knives, that illuminate the burial ground north of the interstate known officially as ‘Unclaimed Lot #17.’ This place has become a pilgrimage site for those wishing to inter old wrongs and, eschewing the more traditional hatchet, wrong-doers have instead co-opted the ‘knife and penny.’

A tool at heart, most cultures have recognized the knife is much more, that it has been a symbol and means of violence since before recorded history. To pass a knife between friends is historically frowned upon. To give one as a gift is in bad taste. It is fitting, perhaps, that the United States have taken this ancient superstition and adapted it to the capitalist narrative for, in stranger times, the bad luck that trailed a gifted knife could be nullified by the exchange of money, even a single penny. Such is the great sterilizing power of monetary exchange, it is the power to hide ancient meaning in the guise of an impersonal transaction.

A uniquely American power.

It is for this reason the author of this publication has decided to include ‘Unclaimed Lot #17’ and not ‘The Great Hatchet Field,’ west of the Missouri and frequented, more often, by people living there.’

It may be the pennies that light up the field but the knives are not far below. In testing the side adjacent to the highway, a strip of dirt worn low by passing cars, I see how the knives are buried vertically, blades skyward, with only a sprinkle of earth and coin between their tips and the open air. This would be an unfortunate place to fall but, because the rows are neat, it isn’t hard to walk.

My crouching has drawn the attention of a woman in the field, a silhouette, now, with the sun above and behind her. She had previously been moving between the rows but recently she has stopped and turned toward me, her posture vaguely disapproving and wary. She begins to walk my way as I finger several of the lost coins back into their places, undoing the natural ruin of the highway. Everything is in order by the time she reaches me: a young woman, younger than me, in cowboy boots and jeans. The boots are torn up the sides and her hands are bandaged. Her skin is made thick and dark by the sun.

I did not wrongly imagine her disapproval, it’s there in her face as well, hidden behind a smile.

“That’s great,” she says, smiling uncomfortably, “You didn’t polish them but I suppose you thought you were doing a good thing and that’s great.”

“I guess,” I tell her, seeing a bottle of polish peeking from her jacket.

“It’s no more work for me!” she continues, speaking as though the opposite is true, “I’ll just dig’em on up on the next round and give’em a quick polish and then put them back in the right order, no problem!”

“The right order?”

“By year,” she says, “Penny year, that is. No knowing when each was buried.”

“Is this an active field?”

“Active as in…?”

“As in, do people still come here with their knives and pennies?”

“Why, they sure do!” she says, “Only a couple a month in the winter, though. That doubles or even triples in the summer. I’ve got one fella who comes around like clockwork every new year.”

“Smoker?” I ask.

“Beats his kids,” she says, “Wow! His oldest must be heading into middle school this year!”

I resist a temptation to inquire.

“So, how do you account for new entries? Do people have to bring up-to-date pennies?”

“I sure encourage them to!” she says, jingling a bag at her belt, “But if they don’t I just make a little room somewhere and adjust! Here, while I’m wiping up these little guys you can look over our pamphlet.”

She hands me a thin brochure and crouches, pulling a rag and the polish from her side.

“The Knife and Penny Field!” the paper reads, “A few things you may not know!”

Below the title is a picture of the field, an older picture. A man and a young girl stand distantly in the center, posed solemnly. It’s dated nearly a decade ago.

The inside of the brochure is undecorated and headed with a cartoonish “DID YOU KNOW…”

The rest is typed plainly in a bulleted list.

‘DID YOU KNOW…

-rain water drains from the field and into our farmland, poisonous and red from the rusted knives and copper you bring here?

-your contribution rests among those of murderers and rapists?

-God is not blinded by the shining of the field? Your sins are as much a beacon here as they are when you carry them.

-we maintain a relationship with the sheriff in order to extract fingerprints from suspiciously buried weapons?

-tradition does not make you welcome here? It is not our job to bear your mistakes.

-we find an average of 2 bodies in our field annually? My daughter learned what suicide was when she was just eight because of what attracts you here.

-there is a tall overpass located just 15 minutes north for your convenience?

-dogs and cats run from miles around to die in this field?

The list goes on for a while in no obvious order.

The back is blank.

“Can I keep this?” I ask.

“Of course!” the woman says, though she does not make eye contact or hesitate in what she is doing.

“Why keep up the field if you feel this way?”

“Oh, my daddy wrote that,” she says, “I just haven’t gotten around to making a new one, that’s all.”

“You like the field?”

“Wouldn’t say that but the city fines me when it gets unruly down here.”

“Why not build a fence, then?”

“You’ve got something to bury?” she asks suddenly, briefly curt as she stands up to my height, “It won’t do you any good on your back!”

There is a knife in my pack, but it’s one I had imagined burying in private. The woman knows this, but seems to think saying it outright would be impolite.

“Will it do me better here?” I ask.

“Not at all, sir. Not at all.”

“Have you ever buried anything in the field?”

“My daddy,” she says, “Whole family’s out here.

I shuffle my feet in disappointment and scratch my arms under the sleeves.

“You read about the overpass…?” the woman inquires, her voice discrete.

“Nothing like that,” I tell her.

She seems relieved, then, and looks back over her shoulder.

“I’ve still got some work to do before the sun’s set,” she says, “Anything I can do for you here?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, but she lingers.

“The way things are,” she says thoughtfully, “The way things are heading here in the states… you’d think it would make more work for me.”

“You’d think it would,” I agree.

“Funny thing is,” she says, “I get more folks out in the field when things are good. Now these people aren’t ashamed of what they should be anymore. The president’s telling them it’s okay, he’s done worse things himself and never had to apologize. He’s not burying knives so nobody’s burying them.”

“These things come in cycles,” I tell her, “If not soon then in a few years when we re-elect somebody else.”

“I had a man out here last week,” she continues, “Drunkard who found his way into the field. He pulled a knife straight out of the ground and told me to go back to Mexico. I told him I ain’t ever even been over the border. Any idea how many weeks there are in a few years?”

“A lot, I guess.”

“People remember where they buried their knives,” she says, “That’s the real trouble with this place. People bury knives for show but they’re plenty happy to dig them up when someone tells’em it’s okay.”

-traveler

‘At the risk of alienating petrified wood enthusiasts, the author admits to a lack of personal excitement regarding the processes involved in its creation and, generally, in the substance itself. Consider the following interaction:

‘Do you know what this is?’ a parent might ask their child.

‘A rock,’ the reasonable child would answer.

‘No, imbecile-child, look closely and see it was once wood.’

‘How?’

‘Time and weather have replaced the decomposing wood with minerals. This is the fate of many things.’

‘So, it is a rock?’

‘Yes, child. Now you understand.’

Petrified wood does itself no favors in its found form, being mostly indistinguishable from other rocks with less interesting histories. It has little value, practically or monetarily, and it takes an amount of previous knowledge and a healthy dollop of imagination for petrified wood to inspire genuine wonder. The wonder is short lived when one considers that this is just another of the earth’s natural processes, normalcy on an extended timeline. It is a fossil, yes, but these rocks were not once the lizard-titans of our Earth’s shadowed history. They were trees, like those that remain.

Now they are rocks.

The ‘East Continental Petrified Forest’ is rife with rocks, with petrified wood. There is very little wood left un-petrified; there is very little remaining life at all. A place of jutting ruins, like dry, jagged teeth, the ‘East Continental Petrified Forest,’ composed of any other substance, might be called a wasteland. A desert.

The park rangers have posted signs asking that no rock be removed from the ‘East Continental Petrified Forest’ and warning that they patrol the boundaries of the park vigilantly and at all hours. Smaller signs, deep in the park, suggest the rangers have trained dogs to sniff out petrified wood, that visitors smuggling even the smallest amount of petrified wood will be captured and prosecuted.

Later signs admit that, due to funding cuts, the trained dogs have been laid off and ask for donations so that the program might be re-instated. The previously trained dogs have been released into the park, they say. Beware feral dogs, they say.

‘But if you’ve made it this far…’ they say.

It is the author’s theory, perhaps biased, that neither the rangers, nor the dogs exist and that all signage to the contrary has been constructed to further insinuate the imaginary value of petrified wood. There is no reason not to believe your eyes, reader. They have not failed you previous to this. If it looks like a rock and feels like a rock and bludgeons like a rock, it is a rock.’

-excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

“That one’s a real unique piece,” a woman says, approaching me from the side, “It’s been carved from a single piece of locally sourced wood.”

“Oh?”

“The challenge for any of our furniture artists is to imagine the finished piece in the untouched shapes that nature provides.”

“The unfinished piece.”

“Of course,” she says, smiling like she doesn’t put up with this every day, “The unfinished piece.”

‘There is a trait, attributed to the Persians, the Amish, and whatever Native American tribe happens to be convenient in conversation, that ancient artisans would sew, chisel, or bead purposeful imperfections into their work, so as not to displease the gods. It’s a nice idea and one that ‘The Unfinished Furniture Co.’ fails entirely to enterprise on.

The items for sale are unusable in frustrating ways- tables that lean dangerously, chairs that splinter and snag. There is a door too wide for its frame, a dresser with no drawers. The handiwork is not particularly good, the prices not particularly cheap. ‘The Unfinished Furniture Co.’ has taken an idea and run with it unabashedly. It is the collision of capitalism and anarchy, the result of a market that allows for anything as long as money is involved. Held aloft by the weighted purses of…’

Shitholes goes on for a few paragraphs, illustrating the author’s opinions of a company that specializes in conversation pieces. I look around the showroom floor and wonder if I shared the same opinion before I read the piece or if the pressure of my potential authorship sways me. I try to like the ‘stool.’ I try to appreciate that the artist has left all of the nails exactly half hammered, and that the actual finish, surely not without irony, has been applied expertly around the sharp protrusions.

It’s painstaking and ugly and useless and looking at it makes me grate my teeth. Everything in the store is a few hour’s work from being a complete piece. Each piece, completed, would be entirely average. Even the underlying principle of the place seems half-realized at best. If the un-finishing of something is meant to evoke an emotion or represent a greater idea, it falls flat in the face of their exorbitant prices and sterile space.

“Do you want to meet the artist?”

Most employees would have given up by now but ‘The Unfinished Furniture Co.’ is not centrally located and the parking lot is conspicuously empty. There’s no reason to not keep me on the hook.

“The same person does all of this?”

“Of course; his workshop is in the back.”

While the woman is putting on her jacket I wonder if she knows already that I won’t be purchasing anything. I wonder this a lot about retail employees. Having worked in several little stores over the course of my life I think I’ve experienced feelings of both challenge and indifference toward the wares and toward people like me, people who are only in a place to ask questions or waste time.

Thinking back, asking questions and wasting time has made up the bulk of my life.

“This way!”

There was a short snowfall several days ago and, since then, the world has frozen. There is no wind, no further precipitation. More than a simple nothing, the world seems to resent the small, necessary disturbances of unsleeping life. Every footfall in the snow is frozen there, accusingly, so that others might be discomfited by the broken symmetry.

The woman and I carve a new path, out the back of the main building and toward a small, shuttered warehouse. She doesn’t wait to knock or to kick the snow off her shoes. She lets herself in and gestures, smiling, for me to follow. It is the last friendly thing I see her do.

“You’ve got a guest, Rick!” she yells.

The workshop is dark and stuffy. It smells like smoke, the way a place smells when the chimney hasn’t been cleaned, when it’s tightened up like a sore throat, like asthmatic lungs. A fire rages in the old wood-burning stove but the glass has blackened and the frantic light is dimmed.

“Rick!” she yells, “Rick, get out here and do your job!”

Several more unfinished pieces stand dejectedly about, potentially more unfinished than those I saw before. Sawdust has piled into corners and around chair legs. It sticks to the snow on my boots. It weighs down a spider web in the rafters.

“Rick!”

The woman lobs an empty beer can at a pile of blankets on a pull-out bed across the workshop. It misses the mark by several feet and clangs loudly off the wall. The blankets stir and groan.

“God damn it, Rick, get up or I’m calling dad in here. He’ll whoop your ass Rick!”

The resting figure stirs immediately, though the movements remain sluggish. A man, dressed in the company’s uniform, emerges and seems to try to pull the blanket over the mattress. He manages it halfway before stumbling to a work bench where he begins to haphazardly sand a small wooden box.

“How long are you going to work on that stupid box, Ricky?”

The man’s voice is barely a mumble:

“Jus’ about done.”

“For real this time?”

“For real.”

“You’ve got a guest, Rick. Someone from the front. Come up and explain your design philosophy.”

“It’s not…” I begin, but Rick has already tossed the sandpaper aside and turned. He keeps his eyes lowered as he approaches and extends his hand for a weak, dusty handshake.

“Name’s Rick McDowell,” he mutters to the floor, “Family owns the business. Y’may notice the work reflects a common theme…”

“Louder, Rick! The man can’t hear you!”

Rick clears his throat.

“…work reflects a common theme. Theme is practical furniture that remains incomplete in construction or design. I was inspired in 96’ when…”

Rick mutters on through a scripted history of his work, occasionally pointing to early projects strewn about the workshop, pieces otherwise indistinguishable from the rest. The woman wanders around behind him, her gait purposefully bored and careless. She collapses a column of beer cans and eyes a TV-dinner stand with disgust.

“…following generations with growing difficulties regarding attention and handiwork my own craft progressed and seemed to catch the attention of the generation previous…”

“Rick,” I whisper, interrupting him once the woman has wandered to the far end of the workshop, “Rick, are you okay? Do you need help?”

“… small stools, ottomans, toilet paper holders… Uh…what?”

“Are you… being kept here? Like a slave?”

“Well, uh…”

“Do they pay you, Rick?” I ask, not sure whether the man is comprehending much of what’s being said, “That woman’s treating you like shit.”

“Family owns the business…” he says, potentially trying to answer the first question, “Sister keeps the place outside.”

“That’s your sister?” I ask in disbelief, “Rick, that doesn’t matter if you think you’re in trouble.”

Rick huffs, his breath heavy with alcohol and some unclear emotion.

“Don’t need help,” he says.

“You’re happy doing this?” I prod, “That showroom makes it look like you’re some sort of hipster artisan, putting shit together and working with your hands and stuff. Like you’re one of those guys with a vision and a nice coffeemaker. You look bad, Rick. This,” I say, indicating the workshop/living space, “looks bad.”

He takes a moment to respond.

“You look bad,” he says.

I take a moment in turn.

“What?”

“You look bad,” he says, raising his voice a tad.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“What are you doing that makes you look bad?” he asks, insisting on the pointed ‘you,’ each time, “I’m making furniture.”

“I’m writing a book,” I tell him, too angry to consider the implications, “I’m… writing a travel book.”

“When are you going to finish?” he asks, “You getting close?”

My pack shifts on my shoulders. It feels heavy suddenly, heavier every second.

“Getting close,” I mutter, “Just a few more places to see.”

“Getting close, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Will being finished make you happy?” he asks, “Is that what you want? You’re ready to be finished?”

“I…”

-traveler

The rising sun is distant and cold. It pulls itself lazily over the horizon and hangs there as though to catch its breath. The night slinks guiltily away, the sky forfeits its stars. An unassuming bird flits-

“Can you take a picture of us?”

I arrived an hour before daybreak, following the suggestion of Autumn by the Wayside and, absurdly, found I was not the first. At 4:00am there was already a station wagon there, brown and idling, soft shadows moving inside. I assumed I was the more imposing figure, a lone stranger from the woods, and gave the car a wide berth.

They began to stir around five.

“Sir? Sir?”

As our great star heaves itself upward into the frosty void (“Maybe he’s hard of hearing, honey. Walk up to him!”) the atmosphere warms and splays out against the cliff side. Perched on a roadside barrier, legs dangling over the drop, the sharp, dust-laden wind cuts into me suddenly. I start to cough.

“You all right there, son?”

I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder, anchoring my body to the fringes of this highway pull-off as though my coughing fit had threatened to send me over the edge. I don’t realize, until the warmth of those fingers, just how long it’s been since I’ve felt the bare touch of another human.

‘Located between Mile Markers 45 and 46, the unnamed state look-out point is just the thing for the jaded traveler. Practically surrounded by other, near-identical look-outs, this small stretch of highway distinguishes itself from the others with an available restroom and a higher-than-average vantage point. Unfortunately, this also makes it the more popular stop and company is to be expe-‘

“Son?”

The man behind me is as wide as he is tall, his pendulous stomach straining at the tucked-in cotton of his t-shirt. His also-large wife stands behind him, near the station wagon. His also-large kids stare daggers from the back seat.

“Son, are you on drugs?”

“What?” I say, “No…”

“Well, if you were on drugs, I’d tell you it’s not too late to stop. My best friend told me something like that back when I was drinking a 12-pack a day. Didn’t know I needed to hear it.”

“I’m not on drugs,” I tell him, stumbling onto sleeping legs as I attempt to swivel on the barrier. “I got dust in my eyes.”

The man scratches himself under the rim of his cap and surveys the area, now behind me.

“Quite the sunrise we had,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Where’d you walk from?”

“Town.”

“Which town would that be?”

I think for a moment, realizing I’ve already forgotten its name. The man’s kids are arguing inside the station wagon, their screaming muffled and indistinct. One of the boys leaps out of the door and starts teasing the others from behind the car. The woman tells them to get back inside.

She doesn’t trust me at all.

“It’s all right, babe,” the man calls, “Let’em stretch.”

She leans into the cab and speaks to them in a tone that is as quiet as it is serious. They pile out the other side and stand around, somberly trying to avoid looking at me.

“Don’t mind the old lady,” the man says, mildly apologetic, “Little over-protective, that one. It’s why I married her!”

He raises his voice at the end and the woman almost smiles.

“My name’s Bill, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Bill By-the-Way.”

“We got a joker over here, Mary!” the man shouts.

He turns back to me, chuckling, and an expectant moment comes and goes.

“Quite the sunrise,” I say and Bill rubs his hands together.

He nods.

“Well, Mr. Joker,” Bill says with a sigh, “Speaking of the sunrise, the wife and kids and I were hoping to see if you could snap a picture of us real quick. Got my camera here,” he says, pointing to a little point and shoot around his neck, “and we just need a fella with a steady hand and a good eye.”

I cough and stretch my legs.

“Sure.”

He hands the camera to me and walks over to his family. Bill’s got his apologetic look on again as he talks to Mary and points out a place near the look-out. She doesn’t seem happy with Bill’s willingness to put the camera in my hands. I look out at the road and wonder where she expects I would bolt to. Do I look like I need money?

“All right, kids,” Bill says, “Gather on around here for the picture.”

I pretend that I’m familiarizing myself with the workings of the camera while the family arranges itself but, with just half an eye on them, it’s clear that something is wrong. Bill’s putting on a good front but the kids are moving around like scolded dogs, even the little taunting one from before. Through the polite barrier of the camera, I watch Mary and Bill and try to remember the warning signs of domestic abuse, of drug addiction, of hostage situations.

“All right, joker,” Bill says when the family has arranged itself, “See if you can’t snap this picture.”

I take a couple but their smiles are all uneven and their eyes are looking down. The sun is rising further into the sky behind them now and backlighting the frame. I grow conscious of the time, of the book in the back pocket of my jeans.

Where to next?

“I think I got you guys,” I tell Bill, trying to mirror his false enthusiasm but he holds up his hand as I approach.

“You mind looking over’em just to make sure they look good?” Mary’s face falls as he says this. “Just a, you know, a quick glance over. It’s hard to rally these guys once they all scatter.”

He forces a laugh.

I switch over to the review menu and start to scroll through. I see a few landscape shots, a few pictures Bill must have taken before he hailed me down, but the pictures of the family aren’t there.

“Didn’t take, Bill,” I tell him, “Am I using this thing right?”

When I look up I see he’s consoling Mary, who seems to have started crying. The kids look uncomfortable, the youngest on the verge of tears herself.

“Try one more, if you would,” Bill says, hardly looking away from his wife, “Make sure you hit the button all the way down. Take a few of them.”

I raise the camera again but they don’t seem to notice. I take a few, try a couple different settings. The flash goes off, probably unnecessary in the new morning light. Whatever act the family was trying to pull, whatever guise of calm that Bill had held together, it starts to come apart at the seams. He tries to hold them together, but the family falls apart around him.

I have their camera in my hand. I scroll through the pictures again and quickly realize that there are now additional landscapes, pictures I’m taking in which the family refuses to appear. I feel embarrassed, suddenly, like I’ve been let in on some secret.

“Bill, I… I think your camera’s broken, man,” I tell him, trying to hand the thing off without looking the man in the eye.

He doesn’t take it.

“That old thing…” he says, suddenly quieter, “That old thing’s been giving me some trouble on this trip. Tell yah what, joker,” he says, chuckling sadly, “How’d you feel about taking a picture on that fancy phone of yours and then sending it my way later? I wouldn’t want… wouldn’t want to forget this.”

“Sure,” I say, and I set the camera down on the barrier.

I feel a moment of relief when I pull up my camera and see the terrified family there in front of me. The embarrassment and concern from before begins to thaw.

“Smile, guys,” I tell them and they try, but as soon as the phone freezes the screen to confirm, the family blinks out of the frame.

They wait, expectantly.

“Bill,” I sigh, “I don’t think this is going to work.”

“What do you mean it’s not going to work, joker?” he says, and I sense, for the first time, an angry undercurrent, “You’ve just got to take the picture.”

“Maybe try taking your own picture,” I say, backing up, “Maybe set a timer or something.”

“What?” he asks, “Is it too much to ask a stranger for a favor now?” His voice is rising and he steps toward me. “Is it too much to ask for a helping hand?”

“Nothing like that,” I say, lowering my head and raising my hands, “Nothing like that at all, Bill.”

The sun is peeking up over the barrier now. Bill moves and it shines over his shoulder and into my eyes. I lower my sunglasses with one hand and I turn my back on him.

“Fuck you!” he yells, “Get in the car Mary, kids, let’s go!”

I do not turn back to look at them and I walk, calmly, back to the highway.

It’s taken some time to get used to this part, reader, the part that necessitates leaving.

“Fucking assholes!”

A car door slams.

Maybe there’s a way to help people like that, but I haven’t figured it out. In my experience, the only thing to do with stuck folk is to walk away. Otherwise you end up stuck there with them.

An engine roars to life.

I pause for a few minutes as soon as I’m out of sight of the look-out and I wait to see if I’m wrong. Could be I am an asshole here. Wouldn’t be the first time. I wait and look over the picture I tried to take of them, a picture of the sunrise and a cement barrier.

The engine idles for a moment and then shuts off. There are no more sounds.

I take Shitholes out and start to walk again. This region is looking pretty clear and it hasn’t seen much of the Stranger’s meddling. He never says much when I call.

I happen past the description of the turn-off and stop. There is a picture of the place, a familiar picture of the sunrise and a cement barrier.

Credit to the author.

-traveler

There are two things absent from the modern casino: the deep smell of institutionalized smoking and the pinball-clicking of old slots, replaced with their silent, electronic successors. The smoking I can do without, I suppose, though I do get whimsical in any old diner that has neglected to replace their carpets. The lost noise presents a problem.

‘There is a strange prize to be had at ‘The Spinning Wheels Casino & Bar,’ strange and closely kept. At the time of this writing, the author has fruitlessly lost money and time in its study and found only the following:

The casino’s namesakes, ‘The Spinning Wheels,’ make up an enormous, if not slightly degraded structure at the center of the building. Built like a massive, exposed slot machine, the four spinning wheels are easily 20’ across and a yard thick. The whole contraption is sunk into the ground so that a quarter of the wheels disappear into the floor. Prominently featured advertisements for the casino show a man from behind, kneeling at the machine as though at some ancient god, his arms thrown up in joy or despair.

It is not an uncommon sight.

‘The Spinning Wheels’ offer no explanation for the vague symbols they display (a tree, the moon, an inverted horse) but it’s commonly held that the only winning combination is a four-of-a-kind of the open door. Located on the far left side of the far left wheel is the crease of a subtle hatch that happens to line up with the floor when it lands on the legendary symbol, lending credence to the claim. Partial winners are allowed to enter but quickly return to report the passage is blocked by the non-winning spins. Jackpot winners exist only in rumors.’

There are few places more accommodating than a casino. Free drinks, free snacks, friendly smiles and a general come-as-you-are atmosphere. Playing carefully, a person can spend a day in the comfortable air-conditioned embrace of ‘The Spinning Wheels’ for less than the cost of a gas station sandwich. It’s not worth it to the casino to track everyone because the casino, on average, will win. Unlike a gas station, the casino can take everything from you and give you nothing back. More than can: it’s trying to. It will.

Accordingly, I do my best to be wary despite a sense of relief that washes over me with the crisp, clean air. Then I listen for the clicking of the old slots and hear nothing. I wonder if the stranger has been here and what he found. And then the lights dim, flicker, and return. A high electronic hum fills the air and, on its tails, a mad clattering from deeper within the casino. There is a smell like ozone, though nobody else seems to notice or mind.

Further inside I spot the machine. It’s as Shitholes described but larger and far more neglected than I had imagined. Powered down they would have the faded charm of an old amusement park but, forced into activity, ‘The Spinning Wheels’ move like a lame horse. A thick cord drops from the ceiling and disappears into the body of the thing. The first wheel shudders to a stop as I enter- landing squarely on the open door.

There is a hush about the room as the other wheels continue to spin. The second begins to slow and manages several pained revolutions before landing on a crude eye. The woman at the lever is already crestfallen and the small crowd that gathered begins to disperse. I watch as she speaks to an employee stationed nearby and, together, they approach the left side of the massive machine. There I see the hatch, hardly large enough for a person to crawl through. As she disappears inside, the two remaining wheels settle on a lightning storm and finally a second open door.

The woman emerges again, before long, and a man steps up to the lever. She, the losing player, re-joins the short line to play and I step in behind her. We both watch as the man pulls the lever and ‘The Spinning Wheels’ creak reluctantly back to life.

“What’s in the wheel?” I ask, but the woman doesn’t respond. She’s busy watching the machine, her face expectant and her skin sheened over with nervous sweat.

The first wheel locks on the inverted horse and I expect her to relax but, quite the opposite, she pulls a small notebook from bag and begins to scribble. I can just make out that it’s a journal of sorts, that the inside is structured and coded. She waits for the second wheel, which stops on the broken candlestick, and notes this as well. The man two places ahead of us in line, who I had assumed was texting, also seems to be recording the wheel.

The third wheel displays the open door and I see the woman make a quick, obvious check.

“Ma’am,” I begin again, “Ma’am,” I say, tapping her shoulder.

She turns, annoyed, as the fourth wheel lands on a splayed hand.

“What was inside the wheel when you went in?”

“It’s hollow,” she says, “And blocked by the others.”

“And how far have you gotten?”

“One wheel in,” she glares.

The line moves forward slowly and play after play ends with an anti-climax, the first wheel never spinning the door. A man that joins behind me is a little chattier, he explains that there are theories about the wheels’ patterns, about the length of time or the number of plays between a jackpot.

“The Wheels have been spinning at least one door per play for the last week,” he says, “A buddy of my dad’s says it was the same thing 20 years ago, just before a win.”

He says this as the second wheel confirms him.

“How many times have you played?”

“Just three tonight,” he says, “Can’t afford more than that.”

“How much does the thing cost?”

The thing costs one hundred dollars a spin.

I immediately remove myself from line and join the small, transient crowd that watches. The woman from before plays again and carefully records the loss in her book. She runs her hand across the back of the thing as she passes and doesn’t re-join the line. She leaves the casino.

I grab a drink.

Making rounds over the next couple hours, I see the group near the wheels grow smaller and, eventually, build again. Play is consistent throughout the day. At $100 every minute or so, I watch several dozen people feed ‘The Spinning Wheels’ at least $24,000, an absurd amount. The first wheel refuses the open door to all.

Around six I pull a hundred from the machine near the teller and I walk around for a while, my hand in my pocket, trying to remind myself that it’s a substantial bill, that money is often tight. It’s a soft, old thing. I wonder if it’s new to the casino or if it spends its days in and out of the machines. Finally, when the line is short, I re-join the people at ‘The Spinning Wheels.’ There are three people ahead of me.

The mountain. The splayed hand. The shoe. The open door.

The inverted horse. The open door. The crude eye. The splayed hand.

The broken candle. The waving monkey. The open door. The open door.

I approach the attendant and hand him my money. He feeds it into the machine and then tries to flatten it out when it’s rejected several times. Each rejection is another chance to get the money back, but I don’t speak up and eventually it glides into the reader and remains. I pull the lever and immediately smell the ozone sigh of ‘The Spinning Wheels.’ The handle buzzes under my fingers.

The first wheel lands on the open door and my stomach sinks. The crowd below seems to hold its breath.

The second wheel clicks to a stop on the open door as well. I see the woman from earlier in the day, she’s returned with money in hand. She writes nothing and she glares at me.

A third open door. The attendant is passive. From his vantage point I’m not sure he can even see the spins. He doesn’t seem to notice the tense crowd or the nearness of the jackpot. My heart beats wildly and my hands feel weighty at my sides.

A fourth open door.

A discrete mechanism bursts to life, spraying my face with dust and sharp, metallic confetti. I cough and cover my eyes, hardly able to see. The attendant guides me, watery-eyed, to the left of the great machine. He mistakes my blindness for emotion, and pats my back several times.

“What’s through there?” I ask, as my eyes clear on the hatch.

“That’s for winners to know.”

There is a little black knob in front of me. I reach out and see, scraped carefully into the paint of the door:

“When God closes a window…”

“No,” I say.

“What?”

“Can I transfer my winnings?”

“The jackpot of ‘The Spinning Wheels’ is not easily…”

“Just to her,” I say, pointing, red-eyed and itchy, to the woman from earlier.

She can’t hear what I’m saying and she looks concerned.

“You want to let her enter instead?”

“Yes.”

“Ma’am,” the attendant calls, “Could you step forward?”

She does and I see she’s shaking, holding the little diary in both her hands and up against her chest.

“This man wants you to go in instead,” the attendant says, his mild surprise having melted back into passivity.

She looks at me and I think I see the same concern in her face that I felt, spinning the jackpot.

“Do you want to go in?” I ask.

She pauses for a minute and then says:

“Yes.”

“Then be my guest.”

It’s difficult to see past her as she opens the door and crawls inside. The hatch slides closed almost as soon as she’s through, but I catch a glimpse of the massive hollowed inside. The walls of the first wheel are scribbled with the names of those who have entered before.

I expect more ceremony, but the attendant suggests I re-join the line and he takes his station at the lever again. Before a few minutes have passed, the wheels are spinning and the line grows with renewed vigor.

“A few years back the wheels spun two jackpots in the same hour,” I hear someone say, “Time’s ripe for it.”

The woman does not return and the wheels clatter endlessly.

-traveler

‘‘Sulphur Springs’ was undoubtedly founded based on the relatively simple and familiar formula:

UNPLEASANT + NATURAL = HEALTHY

Well known among the locals and around websites that offer the local experience, ‘Sulfur Springs’ is only really advertised by its distinct smell, which wafts through the forested surroundings and should, by all accounts, turn any intelligent creature on its heels. An unexpecting hiker might arrive at the trailhead thinking they misplaced a boiled egg in their pack but, nearer the springs, would be forced to assume the egg had swelled, rotted, and burst.

Still, there is a strong belief among some that ‘Sulphur Springs’ is a hidden tonic, that the wretched waters can strengthen the weak and cure the sickly. Tucked into a scenic alcove and bubbling at a mild 81 degrees Fahrenheit, it is nevertheless an acquired taste. Those who acquire it are evangelical and very, very few.’

A dip in ‘Sulphur Springs’ is the act of a desperate man, a man searching for a vitality he once, but no longer has. Even in town, where the smell of it lingers like thick but distant flatulence, I realize that, if there was any truth to the miracle of spring water, we’d all already smell like shit. The woman at the store, the woman who hands me a receipt for the swim trunks I purchase, the woman who may have lived near ‘Sulphur Springs’ all her life- she turns her nose up at me.

The smell of desperation repulses her.

-traveler

The old house has been gutted, its walls scraped bare, its innards strewn about the yard to rot. The door hangs off its hinges, cobwebs wriggle and tear like ragged gums. Even the rats have abandoned the old house, even the spiders. The old house is without life.

‘‘The Old House Bakery’ is a pleasant place to stop for coffee, a place for well-baked bread and quiet conversations. They serve an array of hot beverages and a rotating selection of cakes and pastries. Given a day’s notice, they are happy to accept special orders and offer reasonable quotes over the phone.

Located in a county rampant with methamphetamine abuse and petty crime, it is easy to overlook the darkened circle on a crime map, the circle that deepens red just as it closes in around ‘The Old House.’ There are murders, here, more murders in the half mile radius around the bakery than anywhere else in the state. As such, it may be prudent to ask whether ‘The Old House Bakery,’ which has seen no crime directly on its premises, is a haven or the bait of some sinister trap.’

The floor of the old house remembers a kitchen, the faded imprints of an oven, an industrial freezer. There are long, deep scrapes in the wood where chairs and tables once slid, oil stains on the ceiling and the gray apparitions of old hands on the glass. Cool air rushes in the back door and, finding it empty, rushes out the front again, pausing only to whip around the unzipped flaps of my jacket.

I wait for something to happen and, when the waiting gets too long, I piss in a room that was probably a bathroom once.

It is, while pissing, that I spot a silhouette in the trees outside, far enough away to be a shadow cast by the setting sun but standing at odds with the wind. Through the frosted glass of the once-bathroom it could be the size and shape of a person or, just as easily, the size and shape of some broken stump. When I check again from the once-kitchen there is nothing.

Just like that, as night begins to thicken, the thing that haunts the old house begins to haunt me. It taps on the windows and scratches at the walls. It pulls the front door from its remaining hinge and places it high up in a tree outside when I’m not looking. For a long period, for nearly three hours, it walks slowly back and forth across the roof. It seems to know what room I inhabit no matter my means of hiding.

I consider leaving many times but I remember the deep red circle around the old house and I stay put through the night.

Even after the thing leaves an old pair of empty boots on the porch.

Even after it covers the windows in mud so that it’s impossible to see outside.

Even after it begins to send crumpled sheets of paper through the old house on its airstream, a novel in wet, black symbols.

I leave cautiously long after the sun has risen and I step out of the door and off the porch and I’m so worried about the thing that I trip and fall on my fucking face in the dust and dirt.

There is something buried in front of the old house, an old iron knife exposed by the wind, caught up in the curled laces of my boots. It pulls from the ground, dull and heavy with rust.

Distracted by my find, I might have missed the thing that has emerged from the trees. There may be a person there, or something shaped like a person, but all I see of that hunched form is a great mass of rotting leaves and ancient pelts. It pays me no attention as it shambles past and struggles up the stairs to the old house. It disappears inside and, after a moment, I hear the wrenching of wood.

The old house shudders and lets out a great, dusty sigh.

I take a minute to replace the knife in the ground, considering the very slim chance that whatever kept the thing outside the old house might work in reverse to keep it in.

I leave the old house with my hands rusted red.

-traveler

There is, at my feet, a great river of wax, emanating heat and a mixed perfume. It flows with the regal patience of molten rock, slow, careful, and heavy. I stand away from the thing, aware that the soft wax coast, thickened and scabby, might break through into the loose liquid underneath. Streaked and deep red, the undulations of the wax river evoke the same induced hypnosis as a smoldering fire. In that flow, I am lost, for a time.

‘At some point the world seemed to agree on a certain definition of a ‘wax museum.’ We agreed that it is not enough to describe the history of wax or the processes involved in its creation. It is necessary, at least to display wax statues. It is encouraged to include celebrities among the statues displayed. If these likenesses are not convincing, then they must be unconvincing enough to mock. If they are simply mediocre then the business will fail.

Because of our high standards there is no place quite like ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum.’ It disregards the historical narrative regarding wax museums and presents something altogether different and perhaps truer to what they, in the author’s opinion should be. Keep your mind open and your breath shallow and ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum’ will be an experience less-shitty than most.’

There is no railing, no careful attendant to guide my tour. As such I could, and do, spend the better part of an hour simply watching the great wax flow. Light purples emerge after half an hour, deepening, eventually, into blue and layering the coast. The complex housing this marvel is massive and stuffy, the air is slick, oily.

After nearly an hour I struggle to draw breath. I cough through a narrowed windpipe, cough squirming, molded strings of wax and phlegm. A flexi-layer of my esophagus dislodges, smelling like cranberries and nutmeg. My breathing improves but I understand it’s time to move on.

Further into the complex, upriver, as it were, there is a great wax waterfall and a molten rainbow lake. The sign there insists that the bubbling center is fed by a natural spring, a wax spring. A map highlights various American wax fields, details the machines necessary to tap them. There is nobody nearby to question about this. I scoff and look around the empty room, sure that none of the information makes any sense but unable to convey my disbelief.

Fuck if I know where wax comes from.

I start to cough again. My skin and clothes shine with a layer of the stuff.

Through a revolving door the air clears and I’m treated to a corridor of glass cases. Inside are the extinguished smatterings of old candles:

‘Hung at the Old North Church to Warn Paul Revere of the British (1775)’

‘Pooled at the Base of the Original Menorah (??)

‘Recovered from a Jack o’ Lantern, Salem, Massachusetts (1963)’

‘Burned on Michael Jackson’s 30^th Birthday Cake (1988)’

There is no clear order to the cases and no overarching theme. These are pop-culture candles at best, mostly pilfered from celebrity situations or vivid, commonly taught historical moments. Each lends itself to an impressed widening of the eyes, a knowing nod of the head, but not much else. Not much else at all.

It would be impossible for an amateur to verify any of what ‘The Tri-County Wax Museum’ presents as truth.

I wonder if the stranger has been here and, generally, where he is now. I wonder if, after suffering these wracking coughs, he would choose to burn the place.

It’s a place that would lend itself to burning.

-traveler

‘’Echo Cave State Park’ is most likely not a state park at all. It is not listed on any official website, for instance, and the advertising it has done seems only to exist in a 10 mile radius around the park itself, taking cues from children’s lemonade stands in regards to both spelling and sporadic placement. Down a dirt road and past several abandoned houses, you will find yourself questioning the validity of the site long before you reach it, a feeling the tour, at no point, attempts to alleviate.’

The weather has become mild: soft breezes, cool air, and sun. In the back of a pick-up I am almost cold.

Almost, but not quite.

Sprawled in the back with a clear sky overhead and the smooth length of the interstate unwinding behind me I almost feel like it could be a year ago, two years ago, when I was whole and healthy of body and mind. When I had my own truck and a place behind the wheel. Autumn by the Wayside flips wildly through its pages at my feet and it threatens to skitter away, to lift into the wind and scatter itself on the road. Despite the theatrics, it remains anchored to the truck.

It is a heavy book.

We pass a mile marker and I tap on the cab. The truck slows and finds a place to pull over. I say my thanks and my goodbye. I assure the driver that this is my stop, even though it doesn’t seem to be much of a place at all. I wave and begin to walk away.

“Don’t forget your book!” he calls out.

Right.

I heft it out of the back, flexing my bad arm. The pages curl around my fingers as I drop it to my side to wave again.

A heavy book.

The road to ‘Echo Cave’ isn’t terribly long and the weather is pleasant enough. Several plywood signs encourage me along the wooded drive, ticking down a mile and a half or so before pointing me to the right at a fork. There are only the ruins of houses along the way, piles of wood and stone that have collapsed under countless seasons of snowfall. When was the author here? Past a few trees the road widens and terminates into a dirt parking lot, half-populated. Beyond that is a small check-in booth.

Beyond that, the gaping entrance to ‘Echo Cave.’

It does not occur to me until I see it that there are no hills or reliefs friendly to a proper cave. ‘Echo’ simply opens into the ground, a paid-entry pit about 20’ across and surrounded by waiting families. A woman dressed in uniform blue is listing safety precautions to be taken upon entry. Looks like I’m just in time for a tour.

The woman and the crowd have already begun to descend when I join them with my ticket.

“Echo Cave was discovered by Beatrice Echo in the early 1800’s while she as she lead her horses to the river. I bet you thought it was named after the acoustics!”

There is a polite smattering of laughter, made ghostly by the stone walls. Our guide narrates the history of the Echoes as we pick our way down grated metal stairs, wet with the breath of the earth and shrouded in its shadows. Now I hear the concerned murmurs between partners, between parents and children. It’s one thing to stand at the mouth of a cave and another to enter it. There are whispered consolations, assurances that a place like this, no matter how scary, is safe. It’s a business, after all.

It’s a state park.

The stairs drop us at the bottom of the pit and our guide reiterates the differences between stalagmites and stalactites, reminding us not to touch either. We loosen as a group, staking out our own portion of the smoothed out hollow. Above us, far, far above, the bright day has been reduced to a small, white circle-

“Like a damn eye,” someone says, seeing me look up.

“Hm,” I reply, though I had been thinking the same thing.

“You don’t recognize me.”

It’s difficult to recognize anyone in the shadows, let alone this man who towers a full head over me. It’s not until I see his smile, which is the nearest facial feature, that I remember the missing teeth and the general posture of a man used to fighting. I step back and crush a baby stalactite under my boot.

Or, was it a stalagmite?

“You didn’t call.”

“I didn’t have a reason to,” I tell him.

“You look… bad.”

“What’s that-”

“You two?” the guide calls, “Please follow me and stay with the group.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” he says, waving cheerfully, “Caught up looking at these beautiful rock formations.”

The guide appears briefly confused by his unabashed sarcasm, but she lets it slide as we follow.

“Are you going to burn this place down too?” I whisper as we tail the group.

“Not everything burns.”

“Would you?”

“No,” he says, “This all seems… ingenuine at worst.”

“Then why are you here?”

“The book doesn’t exactly give everything away in the descriptions. I needed to make sure it wasn’t one of the contagious ones. Contagious like that plant of yours.”

“It died,” I tell him.

“Condolences.”

We squeeze our way down several halls, the stranger and I bringing up the rear. He folds his bulk gracefully, his shoulders barely brushing the cramped cavern walls. I follow his lead, keeping an eye to the back. Eventually we descend another staircase and gather in a small chamber.

“This section of the cavern is affectionately called the ‘Shoe Closet,’ any guesses why?”

Several people guess as the stranger skirts the group. I follow him, bumping into the others and apologizing under my breath. Occasionally his arm sneaks out to tap a wall but he never pauses long enough to listen. I catch up to him once he stops.

The guide has started some sort of countdown.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

“This place is marked by the eye. You saw it yourself.”

“Four, three…”

“I saw the entrance to the cave.”

“Hold my hand,” he says, “I don’t much like the dark.”

“One…”

The lights turn off and the darkness of ‘Echo Cave’ becomes absolute. There are little frightened noises all around us, the startle of a crowd expecting the surprise. Rough fingers snake between my own as the guide’s voice cuts through the murmuring:

“This may be the darkest dark you’ve ever seen. No light from above is able to penetrate this far into the earth.”

“Why are you afraid of the dark?” I ask, thinking of the thing at the rest stop.

The stranger tickles my palm and says nothing.

“Try waving your hand in front of your face,” the guide continues, “Careful not to hit anyone! Some of you may think you can make it out, maybe you see a little movement, but that’s only your mind. Your head knows there should be something there and it’s fooling your eyes.”

“You and I know better,” the stranger says, his lips very close to my ear, “Folks like us put a lot of stock into eyes.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He tickles my palm again.

The lights flash back on and I yank my arm away reflexively. The stranger does not appear particularly affected, though he cuts ahead of me as the group is syphoned down another narrow path.

“We’ll have to walk a ways to the ‘Sitting Room,’ named by Ms. Echo herself…”

My leg starts to ache as we descend further, the combined wear of the cold and the stairs on the weakened bone. I struggle to keep sight of the stranger ahead but cannot politely push past the people between us. I wonder if it really matters that I stay near him.

“Here we are!” the guide says, her voice excited as we enter a massive chamber.

I make my way toward the stranger, expecting he’ll avoid me, but see he’s gone back to tapping cave walls when the guide’s back is turned. The tour group as a whole has spread about and seems determined to ignore the continued narration.

“Find what you’re looking for?” I ask.

“Have you?”

“I’m not looking for anything,” I tell him, “If I can get through this tour it’s another place to tick off in the book.”

“Remind me why it’s important you see them all?” he asks, but we’re interrupted before I can reply.

“Sir, please don’t touch the cave walls. The oil from your skin is detrimental to crystal growth.”

“Sorry,” the stranger says, and he makes a show of stepping away while the guide still watches.

When the coast is clear he starts again.

“Is inhibiting crystal growth what you planned all along?”

“This place is just shitty, like I said.”

“So?”

“So I’m just looking for a faster way out,” he says, leaning close in to an alcove, “Stand here and look at the wall.”

I step closer and he grips me by the shoulders, taking care to position me just so. Up close he smells like gasoline- like a lit match.

“Now shine your cellphone light ahead.”

I turn on my phone and shine it at the wall. There are cracks there, some minor and some that stretch from the floor up into the darkness above.

“Watch,” he says, and he steps forward into the alcove.

He steps again, and again, moving impossibly far into wall. His body is hunched, his frame stunted, but only as though he were passing through a cramped passage. Each step he takes seems to push the far wall back, an optical illusion unfolding in jolts. The stranger smiles and the shadows emphasize the gaps in his broken mouth. By all accounts the man could be twenty feet down the impossible corridor.

“What are you doing?” the guide’s voice again. I turn and my light turns with me.

“Just getting a closer look,” I tell her, showing both my hands in mock surrender.

Squinting at my light, she nods and turns back to the others, satisfied that I haven’t taken cues from the stranger’s poor behavior.

The man and the corridor have disappeared in the absence of light. I look about the room, carefully checking the faces of every man, woman, and child present. I peer into the corners and discretely tap the walls but, when the tour moves forward, it becomes clear the stranger is no longer with us.

I think of him during our ascent, the eye of the cave widening to accept our exit. It would be fruitless to worry about a vanishing man but I wonder, as they draw a metal gate over the cave, if he will be all right down there in the dark.

I certainly wouldn’t be.

I call the number scrawled across my palm, the stranger’s inked tickling brought to light in the sun.

It rings once, twice…

-traveler