‘Operating on a system of airlocked experiences, ‘A House in Textures’ maintains dark exhibits to keep guests focused on their sense of touch. This works well, unfortunately.’
‘A House in Textures’ isn’t the worst destination I’ve visited on the Wayside but the experience is up there. The first is a room of standard carpet. The second is a room of shag. Each room is followed by a short, bright hallway in which the actual specifications of the previous ‘felt experience’ are explained. They describe carpet like some people talk about coffee or wine, indicating notes and ages. It’s lost on me and it goes that way for some time, me feeling around for each exit, worried I’ll move too fast and bump into someone ahead or move too slow and keep up an imaginary line.
There were no other vehicles in the lot when I arrived.
Dark room with carpet.
Bright hallway with description.
Dark room with carpet.
Bright hallway with description.
The next carpeted room is less pleasant. It has a smell and there are pieces of something broken into the fibers of the carpet. The next hallway explains that this room was ‘Unkempt Shag,’ furthering specifying that chips, popcorn, and animal hair have been worked into the fabric.
The next room is damp and perfumed. The one after damp and mildewy.
Then the wood floors. The first is waxed and sturdy. The second hard but creaking. Several rooms later I enter a cramped tunnel made of dry, splintering planks and when I attempt to move backward I find the door locked behind me. After struggling with the knob for several minutes, a glaring red exit sign pops on ahead. It leads to the next hallway where I read that I’ve just exited the ‘Splintered Deck Crawlway,’ a whimsical interlude at the termination of ‘A House in Textures’’ first act. These boards, it says, were swollen with snowmelt and dried in the sun over several seasons. Meaning they took them from an old, abandoned house somewhere. The signs asks, rhetorically, if I noted the leaded paint chips.
I see them now, on my palms.
I do miss houses, sometimes. I’d forgotten what it was like, all the domestic comforts and horrors.
I feel ahead into the next room and discover tile below my fingers. It’s cool and smooth and immaculately clean but I imagine it will get worse.
And it does.
-traveler
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