I see why people used to get trapped here. ‘The Place That Feels Like Home’ feels exactly like home, even after I paid for it. Even after I signed waivers indicating my willingness to be removed from the property when my time is up. Those are not so different than the sacrifices a person makes to stay at home. A financial trade-off. A limiting of privacy and rights.
My spot in ‘The Place That Feels Like Home’ is one of the cheaper ones. Limited furnishing. One small window overlooking the parking lot. There is nothing homey about it. No effort has been put in because none is necessary.
It’s nice.
‘‘The Place That Feels Like Home’ is a trap older than recorded history- the human equivalent of a roach motel. It was a bit of a Bermuda Triangle for early colonists and, for a while, it was the site of long-lived pseudo-Christian cult. Long-lived because followers didn’t have a tendency to go spreading their blasphemy in good ‘actual Christian’ settlements, and pseudo-Christian only because the leaders went to great lengths to rationalize their inability to leave ‘The Place That Feels Like Home’ via Bible verses taken well out of context.
The colonists did eventually figure it all out, though, and they hung a few of the cult leaders and scattered its followers and, using a rope-around-the-waist system for a few willing entrepreneurs, successfully mapped out the perfect circle perimeter of ‘The Place That Feels Like Home’ (though it was later discovered to be a sphere. Then they did what any good colonizer does: they started making money off land that didn’t initially belong to them.
And they’re still at it.’
By the end of my hour in ‘The Place That Feels Like Home,’ I’m pretty sure it actually is a place I spent time before this. Maybe in a previous life? It’s very familiar and deeply comfortable in the way that nostalgia tries to be.
So when they ring the bell to tell me I’ve got ten minutes, I ignore it. And when they ring the bell again to signal five, I reason I should just enjoy the time I have left. Pretend like it will last forever.
And when they’re dragging me out, I wonder why it was easier to leave my actual home, to stay gone so long.
Maybe I’m not meant for comfort.
When I settle in the trailer again I send a short email-message of apology to the staff at ‘The Place That Feels Like Home,’ though I’m sure they get it all the time. An auto-reply indicates ways I can go back to feeling like I did before engaging with ‘The Place That Feels Like Home.’ I read them and try to relax in the cracked leather of the driver’s seat, which is comfortable, still, but that feels nothing at all like home.
-traveler
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