Ideas and places left behind by time illuminate a view into ourselves that many do not ever wish to see.
We looked for the building for more than an hour, driving slowly down a dirt and gravel road always looking at thickets and copses. We drove down County Road 58 and didn’t find what we needed, so we continued on. We turned onto County Road 59 and drove and in one of the yards by the gravel road an angry redfaced redneck with a dozen pigs in his yard hooked his thumbs under the suspenders of his denim overalls and he stared at me and I stared right back at him and a small boy was sitting in the driver’s seat of a derelict full size van. I waved to the boy because I wasn’t thinking. He waved back, as can be expected, but the boy’s relative saw the boy’s friendly gesture in return and the man’s eyes hardened.
As we continued down the road there were no more eventful moments to be shared with the locals. The land was lush and fertile and everywhere crops grew and the weeds grew too and the air was filled with the sound of the redwing blackbirds shouting out their specific vocalizations, phonemes so foreign to the tongue of my mother that I declared my inability to transliterate or find a semblance of meaning within their warbling tones.
We resolved to take one more pass around the County Roads, since the building certainly existed and certainly it was on the road we had been travelling. Suddenly I looked over my left shoulder and said “Darling, slow down. We need to turn around. I think I saw a roof through the trees.”
We turned around and made our way to the copse of trees that I had noticed and I felt my heart begin to race in exultation, because I had found what had been sought.
She said “I can see the roof!” and we parked the car out of the line of sight of the road. When we got out of the car she came over to me. As we saw at a brief distance the entrance to the abandoned school, she looked into my eyes and her pupils were huge although it was a bright day and she kissed me like she really meant it. The doors were invisible or removed or decayed, and in any case no barrier obstructed the entrance. The stone and metal were still structurally sound but the trees that grew over all things and the ivy climbing walls gave me the sense that I had come upon a holy place, one that nature was retaking, and that I should tread lightly upon this sanctified ground.
As we approached the steps to the school the sky began to fall with the violent buffeting of wild turkey’s wings. My love became alarmed because she was unused to turkeys waking up from a perch above her head, but soon enough she calmed and we went into the abandoned school. To my everlasting shame, I did not bring anything to clean the site and so I was forced to view cardboard and Doritos wrappers and crumpled bags from McDonald's and the occasional 24 oz. can of beer and it was my lot in life to pretend I did not see them. And I let the trash lie there on the hardwood floors of a schoolhouse abandoned for my life and ten years beyond it. We are judged by what we do not do.
There is much more to say of the building. It still stands. In one room there is a piano in abject disrepair. Some of the floorboards have caved in, but not nearly all. There is a marvelous breezeway outside of the section of the building with the classrooms. Not far from the center of that breezeway you can hear the constant horrifying buzzing of a thousand stinging insects. If you should unwisely trace that sound to a particular open-air room, the buzzing amplifies to unbearable levels and the sense of danger becomes palpable, but even as everywhere the air vibrates in threats of pain my skin was not pierced. I backed slowly away and muttered and shouted curse words under my breath and soon enough the evil flying bastards got back to normal.
There is more to say, but
I do not know how to begin.
It was a lovely day in April. We had just hiked for several miles and that was nice,
and then she remembered that we were near an abandoned building she wanted to visit
and long before we walked out the archway and down the stairs and got back in the car
I was aware that I was in love with her and that my love made no more sense
than a thousand wasps deciding to build a hive in an abandoned schoolhouse.
It did not need to make sense. It just was. In one room the wasps build nests.
In the next I fall in love.
Earlier in the breezeway I found a couple spent shotgun shells and I put them into my pockets out of habit. Half the wheel of the year has turned since that day in Carden Bottoms. I once prided myself on being a man with roots, though I am admittedly a poor one. I did not feel the need to travel and explore, reasoning that my books contained all the knowledge of countries familiar and foreign. But what immeasurable happiness could have been lost if I had not taken a trip that day!
We looked for the building for more than an hour, driving slowly down a dirt and gravel road always looking at thickets and copses. We drove down County Road 58 and didn’t find what we needed, so we continued on. We turned onto County Road 59 and drove and in one of the yards by the gravel road an angry redfaced redneck with a dozen pigs in his yard hooked his thumbs under the suspenders of his denim overalls and he stared at me and I stared right back at him and a small boy was sitting in the driver’s seat of a derelict full size van. I waved to the boy because I wasn’t thinking. He waved back, as can be expected, but the boy’s relative saw the boy’s friendly gesture in return and the man’s eyes hardened.
As we continued down the road there were no more eventful moments to be shared with the locals. The land was lush and fertile and everywhere crops grew and the weeds grew too and the air was filled with the sound of the redwing blackbirds shouting out their specific vocalizations, phonemes so foreign to the tongue of my mother that I declared my inability to transliterate or find a semblance of meaning within their warbling tones.
We resolved to take one more pass around the County Roads, since the building certainly existed and certainly it was on the road we had been travelling. Suddenly I looked over my left shoulder and said “Darling, slow down. We need to turn around. I think I saw a roof through the trees.”
We turned around and made our way to the copse of trees that I had noticed and I felt my heart begin to race in exultation, because I had found what had been sought.
She said “I can see the roof!” and we parked the car out of the line of sight of the road. When we got out of the car she came over to me. As we saw at a brief distance the entrance to the abandoned school, she looked into my eyes and her pupils were huge although it was a bright day and she kissed me like she really meant it. The doors were invisible or removed or decayed, and in any case no barrier obstructed the entrance. The stone and metal were still structurally sound but the trees that grew over all things and the ivy climbing walls gave me the sense that I had come upon a holy place, one that nature was retaking, and that I should tread lightly upon this sanctified ground.
As we approached the steps to the school the sky began to fall with the violent buffeting of wild turkey’s wings. My love became alarmed because she was unused to turkeys waking up from a perch above her head, but soon enough she calmed and we went into the abandoned school. To my everlasting shame, I did not bring anything to clean the site and so I was forced to view cardboard and Doritos wrappers and crumpled bags from McDonald's and the occasional 24 oz. can of beer and it was my lot in life to pretend I did not see them. And I let the trash lie there on the hardwood floors of a schoolhouse abandoned for my life and ten years beyond it. We are judged by what we do not do.
There is much more to say of the building. It still stands. In one room there is a piano in abject disrepair. Some of the floorboards have caved in, but not nearly all. There is a marvelous breezeway outside of the section of the building with the classrooms. Not far from the center of that breezeway you can hear the constant horrifying buzzing of a thousand stinging insects. If you should unwisely trace that sound to a particular open-air room, the buzzing amplifies to unbearable levels and the sense of danger becomes palpable, but even as everywhere the air vibrates in threats of pain my skin was not pierced. I backed slowly away and muttered and shouted curse words under my breath and soon enough the evil flying bastards got back to normal.
There is more to say, but
I do not know how to begin.
It was a lovely day in April. We had just hiked for several miles and that was nice,
and then she remembered that we were near an abandoned building she wanted to visit
and long before we walked out the archway and down the stairs and got back in the car
I was aware that I was in love with her and that my love made no more sense
than a thousand wasps deciding to build a hive in an abandoned schoolhouse.
It did not need to make sense. It just was. In one room the wasps build nests.
In the next I fall in love.
Earlier in the breezeway I found a couple spent shotgun shells and I put them into my pockets out of habit. Half the wheel of the year has turned since that day in Carden Bottoms. I once prided myself on being a man with roots, though I am admittedly a poor one. I did not feel the need to travel and explore, reasoning that my books contained all the knowledge of countries familiar and foreign. But what immeasurable happiness could have been lost if I had not taken a trip that day!
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