Upon returning to Otherwise, the two sides switch, and both are able to duplicate those from the first experiment. Or at least thereabouts – not quite as familiar with the route as Tony, it takes Jeremy roughly twenty-two minutes to find the cemetery. Curiously enough, those other two manage to drive it in about exactly an hour, though Clay insists he wasn’t speeding. Still, even these slight disparities do nothing to dispel the experiment’s incongruities.
Jeremy resolves to get a more detailed map on paper somewhere, preferably some older ones, even if it means driving up to Winston-Salem, or the state capital in Raleigh. He also makes a point of sticking around the graveyard until Clay and Tony arrive, just for one final piece of confirmation, even though he and Marcus have already long run dry on conversational material. They randomly inspect tombstones, first in conjunction and then separately, and are eventually reduced to texting people, and further eating up their data plan to scroll random social media sites.
“There has got to be something about this terrain we don’t understand,” Jeremy tells him, not for the first time, after Marcus has finished explaining his next planned performance art piece. And this is a phrase Jeremy will repeat once the other two arrive in Clay’s faded red pickup, too, and they’re standing around in a light mist, discussing the situation.
Jeremy and Marcus are offered a ride back to Otherwise, though this would mean climbing into the bed of Clay’s truck. Instead they opt to return on foot, despite the darkness now, if for no other reason than that it is faster, and much less cold. Still, Jeremy is given reason to rue this decision in some respects, considering that the duo in the truck somehow manage to get lost, for nearly three and a half hours, before finally reemerging around 11:30pm. Tony in particular looks extremely rattled by this experience.
“I don’t know, I can’t explain it…,” he says, ashen, even slightly shaking, as they stand around in the smoking area, next to the garden, behind the kitchen. Though ordinarily not a smoker, he has borrowed a cigarette from Denise and is puffing away in an effort to calm down. “Shit started to all look the same after a while, I’m kinda joking around like, man, haven’t we passed this already? But only kinda…”
“Fuckin GPS, though…,” is all Clay has to say, shaking his head a couple of times while tipping back this pint bottle of bourbon, conveniently extracted just now from his truck.
“Well I mean, yeah, that was part of it, but…I don’t know, the whole thing was weird. There’s one turn to get here, from Stokely Farm Road, right? But then we somehow missed that and…I don’t even know where the fuck we ended up.”
“Part of the problem is the map app sucks,” Clay insists, “the whole reason we missed the road is they highlight your route in, like, this bright ass fuckin blue, but then you can’t read the street name. So you zoom in more, but that just makes the street name smaller. At one point it showed me literally driving in a circle for ten minutes, even though we were on a straight road…”
“Well, at least you made it back,” Denise offers, however weakly.
“Yeah, well, like I said, we’re actually gonna chart this region ourselves, one way or the other,” Jeremy tells them.
Perhaps to block out these troublesome real world concerns, when morning arrives, the artists and non-artists alike jump into projects with renewed vigor. For many this brings them around full circle to their primary interest in art to begin with, an escape. Emily awakens at barely past seven in the morning, glances with a warm little smile over at Jeremy, then climbs out of bed. She’s contemplated showering, or maybe even drifting over to the main house for some coffee, except for some reason she can’t stop thinking about that natural spring. This mental image of, if her internal compass is correct, it running right underneath this cabin, or maybe in between this one and the Druckers’. That make it seem all the stranger, somehow.
She drifts over to the barn and down that hatch door for a look, is surprised to see the lights are already ablaze, as far down as she can see, along both sides. It’s just so peaceful and beautiful down here, not to mention mysterious, and the majesty of his sight has her standing in motionless awe, smiling slightly with her mouth otherwise fully agape. The bright white light of the bulbs shimmering ever so slightly on this dark and placid pool, the perfection of these clean white tiles and spotless concrete pathways, their symmetry receding into infinity.
Part of her wishes to walk the length of it this morning, and see where it leads, though she feels just the slightest twinge of fear at the thought of doing so alone. Really, if she’s being honest with herself, what she most wants to do – however idle and possibly irrational – is to simply stand right here for as long as she can, at the mouth of this tunnel, and…well, not so much guard the entrance, because that’s kind of a silly way to phrase it, but, yes, maybe see what might materialize out of the gloom at the other end? Wow, isn’t that a crazy thought, to picture that, she thinks and even giggles a little bit to herself, which echoes ever so slightly.
After tiring of this, she climbs the steep wooden steps and shuts the hatch. Then saunters over to the school building, entering via its side door, where she’s not surprised to see the warm yellow light of the back classroom spilling into the hall. This means Tom is already hard at work on his next painting, although this isn’t too surprising in that he gets started somewhere around five, every single morning. He and Kathy both are the epitome of professionalism, and, everyone seems to agree, a major source of inspiration, particularly as they are so unpretentious and approachable.
“Hello there!” Tom says, turning to her with a warm smile when she enters the room. He’s standing in the middle, stabbing away at the latest canvas, with the room’s lone bank of windows to his right, spaced out along the back, eastern wall. Emily knows that artists prefer north facing windows, though the light here does seem mostly adequate, especially with an overhead on and a small lamp nearby.
When he asks what brings her about this morning, Emily explains this wild notion that has seized her, which is that she wants to paint a mural along the hallway, just outside his room. Hearing this, his eyebrows shoot up and he sets his paintbrush down, as the two of them drift into the hall for a look. Rubbing his goateed chin, Tom nods repeatedly, eyeing this stretch of cement blocks painted a creamy off-white, from here to the teacher’s lounge in the corner.
“I think that’s an…excellent idea,” he tells her, “it must be at least, what, ten by twenty feet here? Something like that. What were you thinking about, specifically?”
As Tom turns to regard her, Emily smiles, blushing slightly, and says, “I’d rather not say yet, in case it turns out badly. I kinda wanna get started first. Then if people recognize what it’s supposed to be, that’s how I’ll know it looks alright.”
“Fair enough,” he tells her, reverting back to his cryptic half-smirk. “Well, good luck with the project!”
“Yeah…I think I’m gonna start this right now…,” she says, and as he turns toward his work room, she moves in the other direction, around the corner and down the long hallway, out the front door. Liam is already in his office, too, actually, visible through the office lobby’s open doorway and then his own, slightly offset, to the right. He’s leaning back in the chair at his desk, talking on the phone, but glances up and returns her wave.
Emily has already done quite a bit of research on the paint required for this project, and the colors she will mostly need. The look she is going for would be street graffiti, of a sort, although realistic enough that her depictions will be readily discernible. She has never been more excited about a project, not that she can recall, and is wondering how much she could possibly get accomplished this morning before anyone even lays eyes on it.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Ben and Lois are cleaning up their end of the breakfast carnage. They too have risen, one if not both of them, somewhere in the neighborhood of five a.m. every morning, with the other soon to follow. The food itself remains out, on the countertop in hotel pans, along with of course the endless coffee supply they keep flowing all day. At present, taking a break as they idly observe a few residents eating, most of which sit alone in isolated pockets of the long table, scrolling through cell phones as they chew, the cooks survey their handiwork, mostly without comment.
“Think I should flip on more lights?” Lois wonders, as she wipes down the counter, then laughs, adds, “or should I say, a light?”
Nobody has complained, though, nor took it upon themselves to switch on an overhead, so they must be fine with eating in the near dark. Only what illumination spills out from the admittedly bright kitchen is helping them see at all, with a partial assist from some weak daylight via some windows along the back wall.
“Nah,” Ben says, laconic, from the prep table he is busy clearing off, tall enough to see some of the eaters from here, “they look peaceful. Things have been hectic enough. They will be hectic again, soon enough.”
“I think it’s peaceful back here in the kitchen,” Lois replies, drifting over to the sink to begin washing some dishes Ben has deposited. “I get to where I don’t wanna leave it.”
“That’s funny because I don’t like it back here. Especially after what Jeremy told us. You know, it’s weird because I was already thinking that, even before. But for some reason I do feel really at home back there in that office.”
“You can head in there now if you want,” she tells him. “Get caught up on paperwork. I’ll finish up out here. I imagine we probably need to fill out a dairy order today anyway.”
He nods and tosses his towel casually aside. With a final glance at the handful dining at the table, and then a little half wave to Jeremy and Clay, who have just entered the room, Ben dips into the sanctuary of that cozy little office.
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