Split Rock
There was a place we would go sometimes, when we were young, for quick thrills. To tease the fates. Urban legends grew here in clumps, sometimes creating shadows where truth would hide in dark nervous little pockets. There was a reservoir tucked deep in the woods that covered a piece of land too vast for any of us to know. What little we did see was just a bit in and was occasionally pock marked with buck shot. We found the shell of an abandoned school bus once. Around it was littered all manner of trash marking what didn't, just then, belong to the trees. Along the outer rim of the woods were communities that lived like imitations of suburbia. My favorite art teacher lived in one of these.
The house he lived in was one he had built and he had left it the color of wood. I was never inside but did get the $3 tour of his back yard. The space he had staked out was cut from the forest and was just big enough to fit a baseball diamond, a basketball court and plenty of room for his horses to run about on. He showed us the hole in a path where he would place a rock everyday. And everyday the snake that stayed there would push it back off again. He introduced us to his horses who were pleased enough to sneeze on us. Lastly, he showed us one of the deep ravines that marked the end of the habitable land he and his wife lived on.
The mouth of this gaping black hole was probably big enough to drop a car into. In fact, to prove this statement, my teacher explained that when he had first moved there, he and his wife had dragged an old metal bumper and lobbed it in. It pinged and dinged it's way down, but never ended in the solid clang signifying the limits gravity could take it. Rather, it simply faded into silence. Rumour would tell us that this, and others like it, were dumping grounds for the mafia. How much truth filled this story? I don't know, but twice, as he tried to make his way to work a dead body prevented him. One of these had 27 stab-wounds in the chest.
The house he lived in was one he had built and he had left it the color of wood. I was never inside but did get the $3 tour of his back yard. The space he had staked out was cut from the forest and was just big enough to fit a baseball diamond, a basketball court and plenty of room for his horses to run about on. He showed us the hole in a path where he would place a rock everyday. And everyday the snake that stayed there would push it back off again. He introduced us to his horses who were pleased enough to sneeze on us. Lastly, he showed us one of the deep ravines that marked the end of the habitable land he and his wife lived on.
The mouth of this gaping black hole was probably big enough to drop a car into. In fact, to prove this statement, my teacher explained that when he had first moved there, he and his wife had dragged an old metal bumper and lobbed it in. It pinged and dinged it's way down, but never ended in the solid clang signifying the limits gravity could take it. Rather, it simply faded into silence. Rumour would tell us that this, and others like it, were dumping grounds for the mafia. How much truth filled this story? I don't know, but twice, as he tried to make his way to work a dead body prevented him. One of these had 27 stab-wounds in the chest.
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