‘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

‘There’s nothing legal about what ‘The Welcome Garden’ does but there’s only the scantest of law in the Crease to disapprove and the jurisdictions involved in ‘The Garden’s’ alleged crimes are complex enough to be bureaucratically repulsive. Its owners have stolen the ‘welcome’ signs from various American cities and landmarks and transported them to a flattened hilltop that rises only halfway up the walls of the Crease. The hill itself has been adorned with massive neon letters that flash the word ‘WELCOME’ so brightly that formal complaints have been lodged, both because it is an eyesore and because, it’s been argued, the display indicates a level of safety that is not at all accurate to the situation. 

‘The Welcome Garden’ does not discriminate between guests, you see, and the implicit welcome is rumored to draw those spirits and creatures that rely on permission to enter spaces.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

‘It’s not so uncommon to seek thrills where thrills can be safely sought. Scary movies. Roller coasters. Strip clubs. Each comes near enough to the shape of danger to be satisfying to the majority and the price of entry is low. 

The minority take it a little further and they sometimes pay a greater price.

‘The Exhibit of Household Risk’ falls into the latter category, but its location does it no favors. Those individuals risking travel through The Crease are usually inured to the petty dangers it further softens, and the thought of home further repels them.’

Harsh words by the Guide, if you ask me. I have no problem thinking of my home. I run nostalgic at times. But it’s true that the thought of going back, the thought of trying to resettle in my life before all this leaves me feeling… what? Shame maybe. If there is a mold of me there, I don’t think I would fit it anymore. 

These are the thoughts that come to me as I slip my hand into garbage disposal that, according to the sign nearby, is absolutely functional. The switch for turning it on is just below the sign and a red glowing light further indicates that the system is powered. Thankfully, the switch is encased in a plexiglass box and further signage details various electric fail-safes that ‘The Exhibit’ has had installed behind the scenes. Breakers and such. 

A map of ‘The Exhibit’ indicates that if I’m able to complete a series of tasks I’ll receive a free bumper sticker, and though I would never place a bumper sticker on my trailer, I can’t resist a thing that is free. The task here is to retrieve a wedding ring ‘dropped’ in the sink and I’m feeling around the blades, which I assume are artificially moistened at the beginning of each day, when the whole exhibit shudders and the motor roars to life and my eyes are leveled not at the switch but at the specs of the disposal which indicates it can process the appropriately cubed corpse of a pig in less than a minute, bones and all. Somehow I have enough time to imagine my ambulance ride to the hospital, the pain and then the shame of leaving discretely so I wouldn’t have to pay, the rest of my life without a left hand including a proposal by some faceless potential fiancé, before I realize there is no movement at all against my hand. 

The exhibit stops shaking. The motor quiets. Sweat trickles down my back, and I recognize, after a beat, that it was all for show. A sound effect and some sort of industrial vibrating device. 

I pull my hand out and step backward into an employee that has appeared behind me.

Sheepish, he ducks around my body and drops a gold ring into the drain. “Forgot to reset this one earlier.”

-traveler

‘There is only one point through which all American trains pass through the Crease. It’s there only because it must be. The Crease bisects the nation, and goods must be moved.

And within the Crease and on the tracks there is one railroad switch that sends trains east or west out of the Crease, depending upon its orientation. It is the only ‘Public Access Railroad Switch’ in America and people use it freely.

It used to be fun, because nobody knew what was on each train, but in these days of the internet, these days of interconnectedness to toxicity, we know what is being moved and when. And people want those things. 

People use the Switch freely, still, but it isn’t fun anymore. Such is the danger of knowledge.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

A figure already stands on the opposite side of ‘The Trust Bridge’ when I arrive. They are framed by the railings, looking from a distance as though they stand hesitant, like me, on the last step before the bridge leaves the ground. One arm is limp at their side. The other is on the railing or on the post just before the railing. The post with the release button. 

More than the hand placement, though, it’s the person’s readiness that makes me hesitate. And I am hesitating in a position that might as well be a mirror image of the person across from me except that I know my own feet are still on the ground and I know my hand grips the railing and does not hover over the button which, in this position, is behind me.

I wave to the man- I think it’s a man- and he waves back after a second’s pause. I shout my intention to cross the bridge and he waves me forward but does not move. Does not shout. His left hand settles at his side. His right hand settles ambiguously, again, on the bridge itself.

The bridge has stood for thirty-odd years. Hundreds have crossed it in either direction, putting their lives in the hands of those crossing the opposite way. Some of those people have crossed because they don’t believe the buttons will actually drop the bridge. Some of these conclusions are founded on technical examinations of the button posts and the bridge itself. Some of these conclusions rely on the legality of the bridge- the assumption no government would allow something so dangerous to exist so openly. Nobody believes they nay-sayers. To believe would make the cross less special. Less scary. 

I mime walking in a way that’s almost clownish and the man across from me drops the bridge, ending a decades old tradition. 

I watch the Wayside destination fall into the gorge and shatter on the rocks below with a detachment I realize, belatedly, is shock. I throw up suddenly and violently, all my adrenaline used up in a single go. 

By the time I’m finished, the man is gone. 

‘Statistically speaking, every bridge has a 100% success rate until it fails. For better or worse, there’s no reason to think the same isn’t true for ‘The Trust Bridge.’’

After I’ve cleaned myself up. After I’ve become paranoid and searched the woods around me for the man who I think, for a wild moment, might intend to finish his unfinished job. After I’ve pack and re-packed my things and wrung my hands and searched for a cellphone signal, I turn back to the path and start in the direction of the camper. Night comes early in The Crease and there’s plenty the Guide doesn’t speak about. Plenty that is dangerous and strange that is not a destination. 

Before I leave the clearing, though, I turn back again and set my phone camera to film. I walk to the post and press the button, releasing the torn remnant on my side of ‘The Trust Bridge’ into the gorge. Once I have service, I’ll find a place to post it where those who’ve walked the bridge can see. They’ll know, at least that it was special. 

That it was scary. 

-traveler