Nobody but the rich call it ‘The Ocean of Grass’ but that is the name on your given map provider. The rich have made sure of that. Those travelers looking for directions on the road should ask after ‘The Lawn.’ Its colloquial name lands much nearer to the sites intended purpose. This is not an ocean, vast enough to be open to the public. It’s not made to be beautiful, though it is. ‘The Lawn’ is a farm and, outside of the rich, only those who tend it are allowed to enjoy its splendor.
‘The Lawn’ consists of a species of grass specific to its 50 or so acres and available nowhere else. The grass is lush green and soft, even when cut. It’s hypoallergenic and poisonous to common pests. It grows slowly and has proven to be resistant to droughts and insects and extremes of heat. The only thing that kills the grass of ‘The Lawn’ is time and that time is exactly one year. This is a feature of a tailored and copyright-protected genetic code. The rich don’t really buy turf from ‘The Ocean of Grass.’ They subscribe.
It takes work to tend ‘The Lawn’ and that work is largely donated. Enthusiasts volunteer to mow just for the sake of saying they have sailed across ‘The Ocean of Grass’ on one of its proprietary mowers. Some have even stolen short moments of peace, slipping off the mowers to lie in the field.
The mowers tend to note this quickly and these volunteers are banned. Testimonials indicate that the turf is absolutely worth it, for anyone who can pay the price.
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside.
My interactions with ghosts have been largely underwhelming. They are like tissue paper in the violent churn of the universe, lost and perpetually on the verge of dissolution. Those encounters that rise above passivity are always dangerous, but I don’t take it personally. I have to assume it’s just a result of the system- in order to exact change on the physical world, their movements have to be crude and hard and pointed. Like neglected toddlers, lashing out is the only means by which they garner attention. And like toddlers, we mostly misunderstand.
It’s not like only angry people are born. And it’s not like only angry people die.
‘Nobody would be particularly surprised to hear that ‘Ghosts in Amber’ is a farce. Despite all the delicate lighting and, to some extent, because of the piped-in ethereal music, the whole experience seems a little forced. Angela Mitter, owner of ‘Ghosts in Amber’ (and producer of said ethereal music) has embraced this difficulty in interviews.
“The afterlife has long been the domain of mediums and psychics and the unfortunate few who stumble, unwittingly, into the realm beyond. ‘Ghosts in Amber’ is the opposite. Accessible. Safe. What I own is not a collection. It is not a museum or a zoo. It is a place for reaching out for the untouchable. The ambience is a bridge, not a veil.”
Some have pointed out that, in a previous life, Mitter was a failed musician, producing the same sort of music that not plays on loop among these lifeless pieces of sap. This criticism is largely unnecessary. Mitter has transcended the trope of the desperate artist who attempts to create a false context for herself, selling her CDs as an epilogue to the short experience ‘Ghosts in Amber’ has to offer.
She gives her CDs away to whoever is willing to take them.’
I prepared myself for something much worse. The music is melancholy synth. A long track or several that bleed into each other. I think it helps liven the experience, though I’ve been accused of rooting for perpetual underdogs in the past.
The ‘Ghosts’ are underwhelming, nevertheless. The amber specimens contain bubbles, only some of which look like they might bear a resemblance to something of humanity. A plaque details the origins of each, as well as a series of indications that offer proof that the bubble is more than just air. Strange electromagnetic waves. Uncanny origin stories. Several pieces of amber were removed from inside the bodies of the deceased, but the fact that this seems to have been a practice (or an MO) is not addressed.
One piece of amber toward the back is visibly cracked. Air moves freely within the case and the split golden bubble. I wonder if I should mention it to Mitter, who hums quietly at a desk in the front, listening to the playback of a track she is near completing. Something clatters in the corner, so quiet that she doesn’t hear, and I decide it’s best not to pry.
I take my CD and leave her to it.
-traveler
The brainchild of a disheveled literary agent out of New York, ‘The Library of Unpublished Novels’ is continued disappointment to its creator. Intended to be a trove of hidden gems, Mick McDowell (formerly of McDowell Literary), has endeavored to do right by clients of ‘The Library,’ paying them a (reduced) lump sum for all rights to any novel that has been unsuccessful on the market for more than two years. The printed copies of these book are hardcover and smyth-sewn and seated on shelves in an expansive, but under-visited venue in rural Wisconsin (where rent is cheap).
Unfortunately, the books are largely trash and few, if any, of the rights turn a profit or break even. Those that have made money (via limited print releases from McDowell himself or lowballed movie rights) are not any better than the others, in fact, they tend to be virally bad, generating profit solely from creative masochists. When ‘The Library of Unpublished Novels’ get any attention at all, it is almost always the wrong kind of attention and McDowell himself is inevitably painted as a bully, making money from the woes of failed authors.
He does what he can to tell people the truth.
There is no money. No prestige. He has nothing but this monument to failure.
But sometimes his clients get to hold their books.
And that’s something.
-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside
Those who have been on the Wayside longer than I have tell me that the difficulty of obtaining information about any one place or phenomenon foretold the same difficulty we now face with internet research. There’s just too much information. And most of it is bad. A solid 70% consists of the ramblings of madmen and certain individuals can claim double-digit contributions. Another 20%, at least, is well-meaning folklore masquerading as fact. Of the 10% remaining, it’s difficult to say, but much of the information that might qualify as ‘good’ is inevitably contradicted by other ‘good’ information. Do I trust vintage wisdom over the sterility of modern science? Maybe when my life is on the line.
There’s something you don’t often say about the internet.
‘He’s called ‘Old Smokey’ and he’s a dragon, though it’s difficult to see. Partly due to size, partly due to weathering, and partly due to the incompetence of his creators, ‘Old Smokey’s’ form is rough and blocky, each part of him looking like a mildly-vandalized aspect of the Earth. Those lucky enough to fly over in good weather might recognize the dragon as a sort of constellation of forest-born cysts, bulging from the dirt and misdirecting the trees in a pattern that does seem reptilian. And those who visit his head will see it, though it’s a long a difficult hike and people say all sorts of things about the mouth and what sometimes emerges from inside.’
A tongue is the strangest and least likely, I’d say, but staring at the visage of ‘Old Smokey’ and seeing the dark of his cavernous gullet makes me cautious all the same. Much of the information I came across tells me this hill used to be a volcano and that the tales of smoke and gas emerging from ‘Old Smokey’s’ mouth are probably due to degrading tectonics deep below. Likelier, in my mind, is that idiots like me sometimes come up here too late and start fires, creating intermittent pockets of legend that keep the stories fresh.
I step carefully toward the mouth and the black inner seems to grow to encompass my vision. When I wake I see the too-close and worried faces of a young couple. My head is pounding to a beat I haven’t heard in a while: the rhythm of coming down from something. When I sit up the woman screams like she’s seen a man return from the dead. They tell me they’ve tried to call an ambulance but they don’t know if the call went through. I look for ‘Old Smokey’ and see he’s a ways away now. I’ve been dragged.
Drugged.
I stumble away from the couple at my first chance, claiming I’m off to piss and that I’ll definitely wait for medical attention. Not my first time running from good samaritans but it never feels great.
When I have my head again- when there are miles between me and ‘Old Smokey’s’ perch- I put my own thoughts out there. I try to tell people ‘Old Smokey’ is probably spouting some amount of natural gas, which explains the occasional combustion, the hallucinations. The disappearances.
My post is taken down for violating an obscure forum rule several hours after I post and I don’t know that I’ll ever get around to warning people again.
-traveler
‘There is no ‘Autumn by the Wayside’ pop-up shop. No booth. No storefront. Not even a man selling t-shirts out of the back of a pick-up truck.
Not officially anyway.
Unofficially speaking, there does seem to be something or someone out there because you’re hardly the first to ask. The answer, however disappointing, is ‘no.’ We don’t strive to make money off the Wayside and we’ve been successful in that endeavor and that endeavor alone.’
Of course I stop. Why wouldn’t I? Nearly a decade, now, I’ve followed the winding path this guide puts forth and I have nothing to show for it but wrinkles and scars and a budding nervousness that I worry may bloom into general anxiety or acute paranoia. I see the Stranger, still, though I hardly mention him anymore. It’s difficult for me to know whether he’s really there in those moments, always a face in a crowd or a swiveled head in a passing car or a snapshot reflection. I wonder if he thinks I’m following him. That’s a worry, too.
When I see a booth in a dead mall at the very edge of northern Texas that claims to sell official Wayside merchandise, that is “Merchandise licensed by the hit guide, ‘Autumn by the Wayside,’ I stop. Of course I do. I loiter near the window and note that, by the collection of dust, this impermanent installation seems to have been here for quite some time.
The window boasts the usual suspects: an arrangement of hats and t-shirts with the Guide’s faded logo. There are koozies and coasters and a few engraved bottle openers. My eyes are drawn to a display just inside, boasting rare, out-of-circulation items. Artifacts from ‘The Immolated Kat Cirkus’ pre-immolation, for instance. Jars of cat hair that appear to be only moderately singed. And needles from ‘The Thirsty Cactus’ taken before it was downed by lightning.
And beside that a sign that says: We have the key to the room you’ll be locked in (prices vary).
And beside that the Stranger, looking bored.
I blink and he remains. Not a reflection or a memory, but the Stranger himself, looking older the way I look older. He doesn’t see me- looks over as soon as I think it.
I’m gone around the corner before he finishes the turn. The Stranger, his obsidian rabbit-thing in a bed on the counter. Both healthy in a way that neither Hector nor I have managed. And rooted? I risk another look and see he’s gone back to boredom. But it isn’t boredom. He’s reading. And maybe content.
Contentment seems so far off that I didn’t recognize it at first.
The Stranger turns toward me again and I run. I don’t want to be seen, still searching. And I don’t want him looking for me if he isn’t already.
-traveler