A Small Excursion

Drinking my coffee, I read a book. It was a horror. A fabulous horror. I phoned my brother and when it elapsed he was not free, decided to continue reading the book at the pub.

After a few drinks where I rotated between book and programming Inara, I looked to the sky and admired the approaching sunset. It was time to go home.

I began to walk. My bike had developed a puncture and my car was off-road due to lack of taxation. Don’t ask about that. To walk you need encouragement, but when you do, it is wholly satisfying. You have time to think, and a slowly changing environment to admire as you proceed.

The dusk was thick, and I came upon an abandoned garden center. Something made me stop and stare at its desolation. In times gone I’d visited here when it was open and bustling. We’d bought my mum a birthday present here as I recall, last year. Now it was but a shell, weeds poked their heads out between paving slabs. Shelves were stripped and bare. It looked completely out of place in the centre of the city.

I continued to stare. A couple passed me by laughing at some secret story. I began to feel desire to enter the place. It was barbed on all sides, and as though the challenge needed to be made greater, it was even surrounded by a moat! All accessible sides had a meter of water between the outside and the barbed fence. Something was beckoning me, compelling me to cross the void and walk the empty stalls.

Spaced at intervals were narrow ledges that spanned the moat. I knew I’d fall if I tried to tight rope the crossing. But still I lingered there, staring across the void at the unkempt garden of weeds and the buildings beyond.

Eventually as the sky filled with a pink clouds I made my decision.

At first I dared to tight rope the crossing. Quickly I realised I couldn’t, and got down on my belly and slid across. The barbs were thin in one place and I hefted myself up and over the fence, with some effort.

Feeling a sense of achievement I began to walk through the weeds. Waist high. Thick. Out of place in the city. I wondered why I was here. Breaking the rules like I was some teenager. I wondered why I’d felt I had to cross the moat and come here even though home was calling almost as strongly.

I felt a pain in my hand and saw that I was bleeding. Blood coursed through my fingers. Apparently I’d not mastered the barbs in the manly fashion I’d imagined.

I came to the first building which had once housed the indoor plants. The door was unlocked and I entered. A huge open space was before me, but it was desolute, empty, long since forgotten by people, abandoned. The sense of abandonment was thrilling. This place was mine, and mine alone. Confident, I pushed open the dirty door marked “employees only”. The place was gutted, everything useful taken when the decision was made to close down. But the sink was full of discarded beer cans, the corner stank, covered in cardboard and newspapers. Clearly I was not the first to explore here. It appeared someone had even made this place their home.

I explored outside again, somewhat nervous of the overlooking houses. Feeling like I was committing some kind of crime and I would be called out on it, asked what I was doing there. I didn’t know what I was doing there.

A path sloped down to a garage. Absolute darkness greeted me as I opened the door. Dark like you never normally see. I paused there. This felt far too much like Silent Hill. I half expected to hear inhuman noises from the far corners that were hidden in shadow. In the distance there was a glimmer of light barely emerging from some other room.

I wondered if I wanted to let the door shut behind me and make for this beacon. I decided to be reckless. The door shut behind me and I couldn’t see my hands, my feet, the floor. Slowly I made out through the darkness, brushing aside cobwebs, dodging beams that suddenly protruded from the fog of darkness. Heading for the distant light.

Ignoring the crawling fear at my back I gazed into the room that was mysteriously lit by a single bulb. How long had this light been on? Apparently someone was still paying the bills for this place, and paying for a single lit bulb. A few rooms led off from this haven, and I could see into them not at all. I lit my lighter and pushed forward, tentatively encroaching upon the flickering darkness. A few scattered objects indicated this place had once been used, a pair of shoes, some gloves. Some tape. The darkness was thrilling. The fact this was a place people had once been made it scary. A cave wouldn’t have been scary, but this place was like a basement in some strangely abandoned house. Who could say why people had fled? Here I was illuminating barely a meter around me in all directions with a rapidly heating cigerette lighter, and I had no idea what had drawn me here.

And I left, and that’s all there is to my story. As I emerged the sun had set and darkness surrounded me. Getting back was troublesome but I suffered no further injuries. My journey home was filled with some wonder that so simple a thing could make me feel so alive.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 at 22:15 and is filed under Life. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.