Imagine a place with a single published online review. Imagine it reads only: ‘Too good to be true.’

Imagine it is a one-star review.

That place is ‘The Oasis,’ or, in some regions, ‘The Mirage,’ one of a series of franchise restaurants that exist only in the least likely conditions. One might stumble upon ‘The Oasis’ operating in a ghost town, its neon and chrome casting ghoulish shadows across the walls of abandoned buildings. It might be the only establishment left open in an otherwise dead mall, the better-days ambience creeping through the halls of the empty complex. A smaller franchise might stand, inexplicably, at the peak of a mountain. The corporation’s location finder lists at least one in the open sea, where no known island exists.

Ecologically speaking, ‘The Oasis’ is whatever the opposite of a parasite might be: it can exist only when nothing else is around. It thrives for lack of competition because it is universally expensive, poorly run, and drab. When there is any other option, ‘The Oasis’ loses out, but when there is no choice, ‘The Oasis’ is unbeatable.

It would be easy to be critical of the franchise owners and of the overall business model at play but, if you find yourself at the doors of ‘The Oasis,’ you might reflect on your own choices and on the path that brought you there.

–excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

Is there a moral buried somewhere in the story of Dan Clay? It rattles in my head like a song, a sleeping ghost, returned from the back of some book I had as a child. Untitled and anonymously authored, I wonder if I am destined to write every story I have ever read.

My senses return, in time, though Clay and O’Keefe continue to trade bullets in the back of my head. I pull myself out of the mud and I search the valley wall for a likely ascension. It’s all mud, everything around and, behind me, the captive storm turns and approaches once more.

My backpack has burst at every seam, spilled itself across the wet ground. I gather what I can on the torn canvas and hold it to my chest like a child. I walk into the storm, toward the trees that form a paranoid huddle in the center of the valley.

There was a picture that accompanied the poem- I hated the picture and I looked at it often. It illustrated the climax, the turn of the second draw when Clay reappears from his year of torment to face O’Keefe, who would have only waited a terrestrial instant. The sheriff is lit up with fire and surrounded by smoke- deep, black, and toxic. Read as written, Clay’s reply to O’Keefe is solid and confident. It reiterates the notion that a good man can remain unbroken in hell.

The illustrator thought otherwise.

The drawn Clay is bent and burned, his face is twisted by a gaping frown, an expression normally reserved for cartoon ghosts. He is sorrowful and screaming or moaning in pain. The drawn Clay appears terrified.

I wonder about a character that would bear such suffering. I wonder why the author chose to repeat the beginning at the end.

I walk into the storm and am buffeted by rain. The soft ground becomes slick. I have nothing so clear as a destination, only the path away from a dead-end. There is still some comfort in that. I try to ration it. I spend much of my time rationalizing.

Clay is a reactionary man, a man molded by his misfortunes. He learns nothing but to be distrustful. He becomes untrustworthy himself. The author’s repeated lines suggest more sinister changes. Is there a monster shaped of Clay that we do not see?

I ask because I am a reactionary man and I am sure that I was pushed into the valley by the stranger. He has been in my shadow all along.

I am nearly blown over by the wind and I press myself against the rotting trunk of an old tree. My old copy of Autumn by the Wayside, the book given to me by a man who recognized my name, slips from my arms and explodes on the ground, its entries scattering into the storm. I catch a single page under the heel of my boot, an entry for a place called: ‘The Oasis.’

-traveler

Not much is put forth about a man from the north, the sheriff of old Saskatoon

‘Cept for the warning, that his smiles in the morning hid th’monster he’d be after noon.

Sheriff Dan Clay wasn’t always that way, was wary of tossin’ round lead.

And that hesitation lead to daily damnation and a bullet-shaped hole in his head.

 

See, back in the day, the younger man, Clay, believed in a world that was right,

So he didn’t think twice, bout’ a man playin’ nice, when it came time for pickin’ a fight.

Faced with Charles o’Keefe, a liar and thief, Clay steadied himself for the draw,

But, impatient and surly, o’Keefe pulled his gun early, and lived on as a scourge to the law.

 

The dead man, Dan Clay, might have seen his last day, but woke to a devilish grin,

“There’s a small price to pay,” said the devil to Clay, “But it might get you kickin’ again.”

“If you come around often, I’ll spare you the coffin, let’s call it a second each day,

At noon you drop in then it’s right back again- no need for a good man to stay.”

 

“For you to be reckoned, all I need is that second, for most it’s a lifetime and then some.”

And just as he planned, Clay took Satan’s hand, without having heard the addendum.

“I thought I should mention, a minor extension- though it works out for you quite as well.

See one Earthly instant gets wrung out and twisted and ends up a whole year in Hell.”

 

Made the fool twice, Clay struggled to rise, and he covered his wound with his hat,

And as for the sin that’s followed him since, he hoped that the badge covered that.

And he’s done plenty fair, by the town and the mayor, but everyday just about twelve,

Sheriff Dan Clay spends a year of his day serving time on his sentence in hell.

 

As though fate had planned it, O’Keefe and his bandits, crossed motives with Saskatoon law,

And knowing the grief, that follows O’Keefe, Clay faced him once more at the draw.

“We’ll fire at noon,” laughed the murderous buffoon, but, ignoring his normal seclusion,

Clay cut through his laughter, “How’s one second after, to avoid any repeat confusion?”

 

In the thick high-noon simmer, O’Keefe seemed to remember, the facts of his previous crime,

Said, “I woulda’ sworn, a dead man would learn, how to judge the wrong place and wrong time.”

Clay made no reply as the seconds ticked by for he knew what high noon had in store.

And faithful O’Keefe, the second-rate thief, pulled his trigger the instant before.

 

Now some blame the liquor, but Clay seemed to flicker, to even the soberest folk,

He was gone for a flash then, with sulphur and ash, reappeared in a black plume of smoke.

Dan Clay looked a fright, with his mustache alight, and the hellfire lickin’ his heels,

He said “I won’t debate, that the place wasn’t great, but the timing, at least, was ideal.”

 

Clay made it brief, and he buried O’Keefe, and he gave up the badge and the post.

And he gave up the gun and the favor he won and eventually gave up the ghost.

Not much is put forth about a man from the north, the sheriff of old Saskatoon

‘Cept for the warning, that his smiles in the morning hid th’monster he’d be after noon.

 

-traveler

‘If Jupiter’s ‘Great Red Spot’ were to have a terrestrial cousin it would undoubtedly be the storm that persists on the ‘Edge of Disaster,’ an ominous ridge in Western Colorado. Fed by a series of mountainous lakes and a quirk of airstreams, the unnamed storm churns in its valley like a thick soup, trapped in a constant approach of the ridge.

Standing at the ‘Edge of Disaster’ is a humbling experience. One feels awe, initially, and then perpetually until the awe begins to feel more like tension and eventually, stress. The ‘Edge of Disaster’ perfectly triggers a series of instinctual fears that are not meant to be sustained. Some find catharsis at the ridge, a resetting of perspective, but most find the prolonged anxiety follows them off the hillside, like a ringing in the ears.’

I looked up weather patterns before I arrived- I do that a lot, actually, but it makes for boring reading so I don’t include it in the posts. This storm never quite escapes the valley but it does, occasionally, slosh up the sides, smearing moisture up along the walls and ridges. That’s been the case recently so I donned my rain gear and wrapped my pack in plastic. I crinkled my way to the ‘Edge of Disaster’ and felt the heavy storm-fear in my ass (like the sudden drop of a roller-coaster, but cosmic and grim).

I was on my own at the ‘Edge of Disaster’ so I, unwisely, played chicken with instinct and I timed myself watching it. It is hard, in a way that’s difficult to describe. I have lived through storms; that’s a different feeling altogether. I have lived through storms.

The ‘Edge’ is reinforced with unmarked cement which seems like a good idea but may provide a false sense of safety. I stand too close and topple over the edge, blinded by fluttering plastic and pushed by my shadow. It watches as I tumble into the valley and slip beneath the storm.

I come to in the mud, far below.

-traveler

“Goshdarnit, I thought we had this worked out!”

The gathered crowd shifts uncomfortably as the park ranger, a man withered by his thirties, wrings his hat in frustration.

“Come’on darlin’!” he coaxes the ground, “Come’on up!”

The ranger’s neck is blushing red and he keeps his back to us, his face turned away. From the side, it’s possible to see he’s wearing a stiff smile. He checks his watch very carefully. He pulls out his phone and checks the time there, too.

“Funny thing,” he says, “Certain things you can predict and certain things you just can’t but it’ll be any second now…”

Nothing happens.

“Here’s a trick that used to work,” the ranger says, “On the count of three, we yell ‘BOOM’! That’ll get a reaction! Ready? One… two… three!”

“BOOM!” we say.

But, still, nothing happens.

“Ha ha…” the man tries to laugh, “One more time: A-one and a-two and a-three!”

The crowd responds in a mutter, embarrassed for the man.

“Any moment…” he says.

We wait in an uncomfortable, almost mocking, silence. There is no wind and branches hang still. Birds do not sing. Even the monstrous children cling quietly to their parents.

“Whatcha’ doing over there, Brian?” another ranger calls from the forest, suddenly, “Old Miss giving you trouble?”

“It’s fine, Alana!” our ranger calls, gesturing her away, “All under control here.”

“She’s a feisty one! Let me have a look…”

“I’ve been doing this for years, Alana, I don’t need…”

“BOOM!” Alana shouts, jogging over, and her exclamation is nearly drowned out by the thick jet of water that explodes out of the ground in front of us.

Most of the tour group is too distracted to see that our guide is twisting his hat between his fingers again, even as Alana pats him jovially on the back. I wonder, for a moment, if he’ll hit her- he seems like a man with few straws left to break. Brian hangs his head, instead.

‘‘Ol’ Unfaithful’ is nature at the height of cruelty, a magnificent geyser that promises nothing. It celebrated its status as a National Park in 1981 with a decade of dormancy, followed by the scalding-fatality of a ranger in the spring of 1992. There is no predicting its pattern of eruptions, no seismic tell to be perceived by machines. It adheres to timetables one week and scorns them the next. It rumbles enticingly for hours before releasing dry, sulphurous, flatulence. It’s said to have sprayed mud, acid, and satanic prayers at different points in history. It’s said to have swallowed a schoolchild.

‘Ol’ Unfaithful’s’ only constant is perversity, and even that seems to move along a spectrum between playfully antagonistic, and outright murderous. Arrive with little expectation, reader, and keep some distance.’

-traveler