#(text-style:"bold","expand")+(size:2)+(color: #FFD800)+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[Sovereign Citizens]
#(align:"=><=")+(size:1)+(color: #95AF67)+(box:"X")[An interactive fiction by Laura Paul and Maxfield Woodring]
I wake up to the first snow leaving an imprint on the tent. We’d been camping along the island’s forgotten coast, keeping under the radar, seemingly going from completely unnoticed to only slightly seen. But autumn’s calm was switching fast to winter’s threat. We’d have to get inside somewhere warmer soon. We had nowhere else to stay.
[[I go back to sleep, it's too much to deal with.->Go back to sleep, Noland will figure it out]]
[[It's time to get up and figure out what to do.->Time to wake up, today's the day]]Rest doesn't quite come. Each time we've had to move we've ended up with less and less. Each time we have to figure out what to save or what to sell and give away.
The tent looks like it's starting to bow as it gets heavy and wet with snow.
[[I try to go back to sleep again.->Try to go back to sleep again]]
[[This is a dead end, it's time to get up.->This is a dead end, time to get up]]I hear Noland's voice attempting to break me out of my haze.
"Terra, wake up. The bottom of the sleeping bag's gotten wet."
What were we going to do? And more importantly, where to go?
[[I've got to get up and face reality.->Time to wake up, today's the day]]Nothing's permanent and everything changes, I try to remind myself. The mantra of nomads. What'd I think, we'd be able to sleep outside all year?
[[Time to wake up, today's the day]] I dream about barking dogs biting at my legs until I'm able to run away up a broken staircase that gets increasingly claustrophobic the smaller and smaller it gets.
I wake up in a cold sweat—the snow is still there.
[[I try to go back to sleep.->Go back to sleep]]
[[It's time to wake up and face reality.->Time to wake up, today's the day]]Noland had noticed the abandoned mansion’s for sale sign knocked over on the now muddy lawn. For the summer we circulated on the beaches nearby there was never a car, homeowner, or even cleaner who we ever noticed go in or out. But the automatic lights out front switched on at exactly 8:30 PM every evening before daylight savings time, then 6:30 PM after.
It was initially Noland who suggested we enter the uninhabited house.
"It’s not a break-in," he argued. "It’s been left behind. The owners have given up on the property being a good investment."
Investment was the word that convinced me. They weren’t invested if it was sitting unused, that much habitable space, while we spent months not knowing where we’d be sleeping each night, if we’d be kept safe.
[[We set off towards it.->We set to it.]]Gazing up at the behemoth facade, Noland books it to the front door in a way that feels reckless to me. Not that there was anyone else around.
“Are you sure we should go in?” I ask one last time, not giving a fight, more as proof of my innocence. That I couldn’t be held culpable. My defense.
“What other choice do we have?” He hollers back, walking towards the front door.
[[I follow Noland to the front door.->Follow Noland to the front door]]
[[“Really, the front door?” I ask. "Let’s at least be less conspicuous."->“Really, the front door?” Let’s at least be less conspicuous.]]"What are you going to do? Kick down the door?" I ask.
"No, I noticed a keypad on the lock. Maybe I can reset the code."
Noland thumbs through the buttons. I look for anything you'd hide a key under.
No sign of small pots, no welcome mat, not a thing. The manor look, nothing human to clutter up the front entryway. No house number. No mail slot in the front door. The keypad beeps as Noland studies it.
The windows have drapes in front of them, thick blue ones, hard to see inside. No sign of life throughout. Maybe they keep the spare key around the back?
"Hey, do you have any guesses on what the code might be, Terra?"
(link-reveal:'"Did you try 1234?"')[ I ask. Noland laughs, "Yup, any other guesses?"]
[["Did you try 'home'?"->Did you try 'home'?]]We walk around back to the crunch of ice under our feet. The ocean churns its dark view, hostile waves that will rise inches above the property line in this decade. Two staircases lead up on either side of the massive deck.
A neglected madrone tree reaches up over the house, growing right up against the upper deck.
The once manicured lawn is now muddy and sprouting dandelions and clover, useful plants we could actually eat. I reach down to collect the greens before Noland points to several large fertilizer tanks that sit next to the pool.
“It could be poisonous.”
The pesticide seems to have been dripping out slowly for some time. Concentric circles of shimmering, rainbow chemicals ring out towards a pond, overgrown in algae and crowded with cat tails.
Noland springs up the back steps to the side of the porch with a wall of windows.
“Looks like a tree branch came down and broke through the glass. Wanna try climbing in?"
"Not really."
"I can boost you through.”
[["I don’t want to get cut, let’s go back to the front."->Follow Noland to the front door]]
[["Lay your jacket down first so you don’t get cut."->Lay your jacket down first so you don’t get cut.]]There's a pause after he presses the 3 button for 'DEF' and then a whirring, click, and the lock is opened.
Noland looks chastened by the mechanics of it.
"Oh shit" he whispers, looking at me. "I didn't think that would actually work."
He stares back up at the door frame.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
He smiles and rubs his neck without responding.
[[We walk through the front door.]] Inside it’s cavernous and dark. Our feet shuffle through weird sounds on the laminate faux wood entryway. Instead of leaves we’re tracking through, I look down to see dozens of faces staring back at me.
“Business cards,” he answers. “Realtors.”
We shift over their smiles upstairs to the main living room.
[[We go on to the living room.->Living Room]](if:visits is 1)[We gaze up at the massive vaulted ceiling, higher than a megachurch. A big wall of windows looks out over the ocean. It gives the illusion that this place is out and open, insulated from trouble.
“It’s freezing in here—feels colder than even outside.”
The wind whistles through the broken window with the madrone branch going through it. Wonder how long ago that happened? The rest of the tree outside looks like it's waiting to fall over as well.
A fireplace sits in the far corner on a raised platform under an arrangement of beams. Maybe we’d be able to warm the place up with it.
It feels like it's the whole length of a supermarket to get to the other side of the room. On getting there we can see they aren’t real logs in the hearth, but ceramic ones. It's a remote controlled fire. I try to fiddle with any knob or button to turn it on, but the remote on the sill doesn't seem to do anything.
"Maybe the gas is cut," Noland offers.
I pop open the back of the remote, it's empty.
“Maybe if we can find batteries, we can check and see if the house still has gas. I'd be nice to be able to cook something for once."
[["Let's check through here, it looks like a bedroom."->Car bedroom]]]
(if:visits is 2)[Each time we go back through the vacant living room, the space feels larger than the time before.
[[Dumping the books and our packs in a pile, we head into what looks like the kitchen.->Kitchen]]]
(if:visits is 3)[Back in the living room, there's no sign of Noland. Even though I can see outside through the windows that the sun's position has moved, I don't have much sense of how late it's gotten. It's like a Vegas casino in the house. It carries no passage of time—aging and progression are only things for //out there//.
I drop what I've managed to grab onto our pile of stuff on the red comforter and head back to see what else I can find.
[[Back to the kitchen.->Kitchen]]]
(if:visits >= 4)[Back in the living room, the shadows from the clouds are soft and muted, the windows in the living room don't let in light, but rather, slow waves of darkness.
[[Back to the kitchen.->Kitchen]]](if:visits is 1)[The kitchen is shiny steel, polished and immaculate. The long counter that barricades the space looks like it could seat 40, not a family. It even has a brass rail.
There's a large plaque above the stove that reads, 'Home Is Where The Prayer Gets In My Belly,' illustrated by a large pig-like man with a porkpie hat pouring a bottle of wine and shovelling a tray of lasagna into his mouth simultaneously. An empty wine cellar takes up the entire wall next to the sink.
I rummage through the drawers to see what I can find. Empty bamboo drawer organizers, multiple different can openers and wine openers. There are multiple sets of still-packaged silver flatware sets, heavy and with no resale value, not like in a video game.
Noland heads straight to the refrigerator.
“Any chance there’s edible food in here?”
He struggles with the door handle. A large touch screen panel lights up. All of a sudden there’s a loud beeping, an incessant high pitch.
“Make it stop!”
“It’s locked. Running some sort of auto-program.”
[["I can’t stand the sound, I’m going to go look for batteries down the hall." I walk off.->Trophy Room]]
[[I plug my ears as Noland jabs at the screen and shakes the handle.->Freeze]]]
(if:visits is 2)[
The kitchen is quiet and Noland is nowhere to be seen.
[[Back down to the left, to the trophy room.->Trophy Room]]
[[Back to the cake bedroom.->Cake Bedroom]]
[[Back to the living room.->Living Room]]
]
(if:visits >= 3)[
The kitchen is still quiet, I double check the drawers but don't find anything.
[[Back down to the left, to the trophy room.->Trophy Room]]
[[Back to the cake bedroom.->Cake Bedroom]]
[[Back to the living room.->Living Room]]
]It's impossible to believe that the room we enter could be some kid's real bedroom. An actual racecar frame sits center, with a swooping hard edged metal spolier that wraps around the bright red comforter. There's a smell of rubber in the room that makes me suspicious that it has real tires too.
There's a desk with no chair underneath and a glassy open-sided bookshelf with three books, their spines facing away. Untouched copies, with dust settled around them. Noland picks the top book off the stack and reads aloud:
//You Are Insignificant! A Choose Your Own Adventure Book// that promises hours of engaging diversion as you struggle through the trials of the now tiny brother and sister duo, Tina and Timmy Teeny. Assist in attempts to reverse their shrinking from misuse of a scientist's experimental disempowering device!"
"What good is the idea that you can choose your own adventure if the book's never been read?" I ask, taking the red comforter off the bed and tucking it under my arm. There's not even a mattress underneath.
Noland cracks the spine and begins to flip through the pages.
“Yeah, they don’t address the housing crisis in those either,” Noland says as I pull a pair of brand-new scissors from the drawers of the desk.
“I always hated those Choose Your Own Adventures as a kid. I always felt like I was being punished for not psychically knowing what the author wanted."
Noland shrugs and picks up the next book, Dale Carnegie's //How to Win Friends And Influence People//.
"Very wholesome."
Noland holds up the third book and snickers, J. Paul Getty's //How to Be Rich//.
"Perfect for a kid."
He puts the books in his backpack and shuffles back to the doorway.
"Should we burn them? It might keep us warm," I suggest.
"Batteries, remember? Terra, no need to go starting fires."
[["Let's dump this stuff in the living room." ->Living Room]]Abruptly the beeping stops and a huge pixellated smiley face pops up on the screen.
The woman’s voice is smooth and tinny.
“Good morning, I am Rosey. Command me to do anything!"
For example: say, ‘Rosey, schedule a driver to pick up my dry cleaning.’
or 'Rosey, what's happening in the wide wide world of sports?'
or 'Rosey, make trades on my behalf based on today's stock prices.'
Noland commands, “Unlock fridge.”
Rosey responds, “To unlock fridge, make sure your unique print ID is lined up with the handle.”
Noland commands, “Override.”
Rosey responds, “To schedule a ride, please state the requested date and time.”
“Screw this, if it’s WIFI enabled maybe we can cut the modem and see what happens,” Noland answers.
Rosey responds, "To see where you can get things screwed ask: Rosey 'where do things get screwed?'"
Noland stares with deep resentment at the smiling face emanating from the screen.
[["I can't stand this—I'm gonna go look down the hall."->Trophy Room]]
[["I can't stand this—I'm gonna see what's in the next room."->Cake Bedroom]]I head down a hallway where I get spit out into another large room lined with shelves and trophies.
The line between personal and impersonal so blurred. Were these still all the belongings of the owner of the house or was it staged?
I leap up to try to grab one of the prizes, but everything’s out of reach.
#(color: #FFD800)+(size:1)+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[New Member Award
“When powerful people work together they become even more powerful.”
Bohemian Grove, 1984]
Is that the same person as the oversize wrestling champions belt that's emblazoned with hatchets and the title:
#(color: #FFD800)+(size:1)+(align:"=><=")+(box:"X")[The Psychophant
Undefeated: June 1982 - July 1982]
As I walk through I count improbably many kinds of sports, activities, prizes, photos of ribbon cutting events, a mounted goldfish with some plaque from an investment strategy fund.
At the end it looks like another bedroom to the left, and maybe a work study to the right?
There's a large mounted deer head suspended above smaller taxidermied trophies at the end of the hall.
[[Walk to the kitchen.->Kitchen]]
[[Go through to the work study.->Work Study]]Inside is a pink walled bedroom that looks as if it's never been used. A circular bed in the center made to look like a canopied birthday cake, complete with large LED lights shaped like candles.
I step up onto the bed to try to pull down the lights, but they are somehow built into the canopy's frame. Weirdly, the bed doesn't squish or give under my feet. I crouch down to press on the mattress and it's hard and slippery under the decorative satin comforter. Just like the last bedroom, there's no bed in the frame.
I lie back down on the stiff, round board and stare up at the ceiling. How were we going to sleep in a house without real beds?
[[Back to the kitchen.->Kitchen]]
[[Back at it, let's keep going on and see what we find.-> Shared Bathroom]] I’ve lost track of time of how long it’s been since I’ve seen Noland. Once that realization hits me the place becomes eerier than it already feels. In a normal home you wouldn’t wander for hours without running into the other person.
I shout his name.
"Noland!"
There's no answer. Only a faint echo.
Why would you design a house where you couldn’t find each other, couldn’t hear each other, where no one could hear you scream?
[[I try to find my way back to the big open living room in case he’s there.->Back to living room.]]"You're demanding chivalry from me at a time like this?" he asks me.
"It's not chivalry, it's practicality." I answer.
"Well, that is the dream."
He was right. We didn't have this desire for luxury. Our dream was to survive.
Noland interweaves his fingers as a foothold and lifts me over his work jacket hung over the ragged windowsill.
I hear the crunch of broken glass before I tumble down onto plush carpeting inside. I quickly check my palms for blood— nothing. Thank god. We didn't have health insurance, we couldn't afford another emergency.
[[Somehow he manages to hoist himself over without getting cut.->Living Room]]I go back through the living room where I see Noland with the comforter down on the floor spread out with our packs. Our sparse pile of weird loot from the house sits by him.
I don't hear the wind whistling anymore and notice a garbage bag taped over the broken window, duct tape bracing it against the suction of the wind.
"Terra! You made it through okay?"
Noland reaches out to hug me and I hold him tight.
"I shouted for you but I didn't hear anything when I did," I say into his chest.
"I was calling for you too. Weird house, huh?"
I turn to sit down and even the blanket’s barely warm from his body heat.
"I found some batteries in a novelty wall-mounted singing bass, but they were dead," Noland says, setting out our meal of canned soup and dried fruit that we tried to keep on us in our packs at all times.
"I still can't get into the fridge or get the burners to work." Noland says. "You find anything?"
(if:(history: where it is "Amphibious Bedroom")'s length >= 1)["Only what looked like a frog's bedroom." I say, shifting onto my side in the cold room.
"Weird," says Noland, "I found a bedroom that was built like an old ship's cabin."]
(else:)["No, just a lot of weird vibes."]
We pass the can of our semi-condensed soup back and forth between sips.
(if:(history: where it is "Mother In Law")'s length >= 1)["I found the service entrance, in case we want to come back and apply for work as the help." I joke, turning a dried apricot in my hand.
Noland laughs and sighs reflectively.]
(else:)[We sit in silence, chewing and swallowing.]
"Is there any water?" I ask. "We could try to dilute this some."
"Tried all the taps I could find and nothing came out." Noland says with resignation.
"Maybe we should just try to get some rest, go to sleep and figure this out in the morning."
"Okay, let's get as comfy as we can." Noland gets out our bags and we put the food away before huddling up together.
[[I try to focus on Nolan’s heart beat and fall asleep.->Dreams]]
[[Noland starts to leaf through the books we brought back. ->Noland Reading CYOA]]Even though I'm cold and I'm grateful to have food in me as I warm up under the blanket and drift off to sleep...
In my dream there's a lawn inset by patterns in concrete that break into smaller and smaller paths. Every route I take is the same, I increase or decrease in size, but I'm always scaled in relation to the size of the path I'm on. There's a house visible in the distance, but to get there I have to leave our tent and cross this lawn of diminishing futures. I stand at the edge of this landscaped yard in the bright sunshine with my fists balled in rage.
Suddenly I'm standing in the remaining structure of our old house, almost completely torn down. The walls crumble off in chunks and the ceiling floats in the air above me. Noland's there in a mix of all the places we've slept, our sleeping bags, our old bunks from the place we stayed in the spring, everywhere we've felt safe before we were told to leave or had the cops called on us.
A family of deer walk in from the yard and move through the house silently, picking at the bits and pieces of our worn jackets, my baby quilt, photographs, the legacy of our trying to sleep safely and well. Suddenly though, I panic. I'm waking up to snow in the tent again. It's pressing down on my face and I'm suffocating and trying to shout for help.
[[I bolt awake.->Midnight]]It turns out that the garbage bag has blown off from the window and stuck to my face before I'm awake enough to peel it off of me.
Noland stirs. It sounds like I've waken him up with my fight against the plastic.
The wind is piercing and sharp, each shard of glass left in the frame adds its own harmonics to the rush of air. My teeth are chattering. Was there any way to prevent the elements from barging in? Even the moon has spotlit our huddle on the carpet.
"Noland, are you up?"
"Yeah, I can't sleep."
"T-This is colder than being in the tent."
Noland moves to put the garbage bag up back on the saw-toothed ridge of the window frame. He comes back and huddles closer to me, our breath forms clouds even inside.
"I can't do th-this, we have to g-go."
"Terra, just try to rest. We'll figure things out in the morning."
I get heavy déjà vu as he says it. We were always stuck in the middle of having to figure out an impossible situation, and yet, somehow always having to put it off.
We fall asleep closer together, I'm shivering until I'm still and we're both breathing slowly.
[[Thankfully, the sun rises after not too long.->The Next Morning]]Ahead is a study with a globe and a typewriter awkwardly placed on the desk, but the globe is very small, with an ornate magnifying glass on a chain connected to it. There's no paper in the typewriter and when I check the drawers and cabinets there's no paper to be found in the entire room.
The window opposing the desk shows an open courtyard, with what looks like a drained pool.
There's also a potted plant, but is that fake?
The end of the room has had a piano put into it sideways, with the bench pushed up against the far door.
[[Go back through to the trophy room.->Trophy Room]]
[[Edge past the piano bench and through the door.->Circular Room]]I guess you'd have to say this was a nice room, like a lot of the stuff in this house it seems to be designed around a wheel and spoke formula, or a circle. A circular central table with a goats skull and a small artistic ceramic holding some lotus root pods and some withered willow branches.
The bulbed chandelier above it was at about eye height, eight large softball like globes suspended by a chain going high up into the exposed beams at the ceiling of the room.
Large worn custom circular furniture arrayed around the table, dotted with pillows and comfortable afghans. All of it weathered looking, dusty, staged and forgotten.
Absolutely taking that goat skull and those lotus pods.
It's hard to remember which door is which, they're separated by divisions in the wall that have fake potted plants in them but only seem to make each doorway seem like the extrusion of a hallway.
[[There seems to be a room showcasing the view of the water.->Sea View]]
[[Through that door seems to be the bottom of a spiral staircase. ->Spiral Staircase Bottom]]
[[The room through that door looks like it has a large art installation in it. ->Art installation room.]]
[[That's a movie theater in through there! ->Private Movie Theater]]The bottom of an extravagant spiral staircase. Inset marble with carefully chiselled out ledges and gripping marks, burnished copper railing mounted on dark wood arches, leaving gaps for latticework between the uprights.
[[Circular room through that door. ->Circular Room]]
[[Room with a chunk of art through there. ->Art installation room.]]
[[Go up the staircase to the top. ->Spiral Staircase Top]]A square resin column shoots down from the ceiling to rest on a tiny clay plinth in the middle of the carpeted floor. Inside the clear plastic suspends Spalding basketballs, Brillo pads, cans of Campbell's soup, a bright green Ralph Lauren polo shirt, a 1960s vaccum cleaner, packs of Marlboros, a brown Louis Vutton handbag, 2000s clamshell Mac iBooks in a rainbow of colors. Some things are trash, some things would be more than useful right now.
What was this monstrosity? A inscripted plaque was drilled into its base, reading: "Treasure is Trash".
I throw my fists against the encased consumer goods in attempt to dislodge it from its hallowed position, but nothing will break.
Was this suppose to be an art installation? I had noticed until this point the house was completely devoid of any paintings or sculptures—something I would have assumed would be part of the opulence.
It struck me as weird that there was no art in this house, but then again, what would the market have to do with true art?
[[The circular room is through there. ->Circular Room]]
[[That door leads to the bottom of the spiral staircase. ->Spiral Staircase Bottom]]
[[That goes through to the movie theater ->Private Movie Theater]]I enter into a room with red velvet drapes hung over every wall like I've just entered into the belly of a whale. Does that make me Pinocchio or Jonah? Maybe we would have to start a fire in here in order to escape.
Do I want to start too many fires? Maybe Noland is right.
There's a large pull-down screen in front of ten rows of eight seats each of what look like high tech massage chairs bolted fast into their places, inset with cup holders and trays. Did they really have an entire private movie theater built into their house?
I sit in one of the chairs, checking the pocket in front in case there's any chance there'd be long forgotten candy, but no luck.
I wonder what kind of movies had been played here. I like the idea they were watching East German socialist realist films, Japanese art house, not whatever that Eddie Murphy movie that Brian Wilson said was his favorite movie was called.
A forgotten popcorn cart has been wheeled into the corner of the room, but there's no smell of butter in the air. The chair is uncomfortable without its massage settings on—it's just sharp plastic stuck into the back of my neck. It's no good place to rest, so I get up and head back out.
[[That door goes to a large circular room. ->Circular Room]]
[[Is that a therapists through there? ->Therapists Office]]
[[That door leads to the art installation room. ->Art installation room.]]
[[That door leads out to an interior courtyard. ->Interior Courtyard]]ALooking out under a big glass dome, being at the top of the ornate marble staircase is a bit nerve wracking. The few overgrown under fed broad leafed plants at the landing don't make it more friendly, their tendrils and leaves pushing out and trailing over into the air above the distant bottom landing.
There doesn't seem to be excessive amounts of stonework elsewhere in the house, and why would you do a several flights high free standing stone spiral staircase in an earthquake regions? I guess you maybe had the impression from childhood or public spaces that that sort of thing was really living it up.
The bannister is also unmarked by bands or intrusions so if you were really going for it you could even slide down it.
How did I fall to my death? Oh, sliding down the bannister of my marble staircase. You know how it is.
[[Go down to the bottom of the spiral staircase. ->Spiral Staircase Bottom]]
[[Go outside to the interior courtyard. ->Interior Courtyard]]
[[Go through this hallway to the outdoors. ->Hallway]]
[[The carved wooden sign hung above that door says 'Tiki Bar Dance Floor Through Here'. ->Luxury Spa Bathroom]]The office is sterile and generic like a shared work space. It's dark and uncomfortable with two support beams that interject through the room at odd angles. I weave around them to make out shadow boxes on the wall containing framed diplomas with meaningless accredidations in lurid fluorishing script. An alphabet soup follows: ''J.D.'', ''FASHP'', ''Psy.D.'', ''CPA'', ''Esq''. Was this a room for a doctor? A therapist? An accountant? A lawyer?
Upon closer inspection, many have "''Placeholder''" in the name, some say "''Name''", some say, "''Enter Your Text Here''". The ones that don't, say, "//M. Bouchard Privet//", or "//Johnny Fresh//"—someone's idea of a joke?
That can't possibly be something rich people do, is it? Hire therapists to have offices inside their house? But then either way why add fake diplomas and things to what seem like a real and varied history as a licensed therapist?
[[That door seems to lead to a bathroom.-> Shared Bathroom]]
[[Through that door to go to the movie theater. ->Private Movie Theater]]Evergreen treetops peek over the roof of the house far out in the distance, in sharp juxtaposition to a barricade of artificial bamboo that lines the courtyard.
The walls of the house extend outward on all sides towards the pool. A thick wooden overhang set with skylights at odd spacings covers the space. The skylights look dingy and worn, stained and weathered despite still having the manufacturer's stickers still on them.
[[Go over to the side of the pool. -> Outdoor Pool]]
[[Those doors have movie reels painted on them. ->Private Movie Theater]]
[[The spiral staircase is back over there. ->Spiral Staircase Top]](if:visits is 1)[I almost scream as I enter the bathroom thinking I'm falling. The floor is glass, it looks down onto what appears to maybe be a garage. It's claustrophobic and vast at the same time-not only does it continue the theme of improbably high ceilings, but it's actually an extremely long and narrow space. There's a chandelier mounted above sea shell themed sconces over the sink, and a ceramic dolphin erupting out of the wall through a spray of pink bubbly sea water with the words (color: #FFD800)+(size:1)[CONFIDENCE] behind it in gold script. The two sinks are missing fixtures, though.
There's a thin walk-in shower with two opposing shower heads coming out from either wall with predominant branding on their handles calling it (colour: #4ACBEE)[RealRain™]. Directly overhead looks like an entire field of tiny jet stream nozzles set in the ceiling. It all smells faintly of bleach, but has a a thin layer of black mold covering its surface.
[[This seems to lead to a sauna. ->Sauna]]
[[There is a rather tidy office through that far door. ->Therapists Office]]]
(if:visits >= 2)
[I walk back through the strange shared bathroom and try not to look down through the see-through floor.
[[Go through the door to the office.->Therapists Office]]]In front of me is a recessed dance floor inset with an aquarium with a huge array of disco balls in the air above it.
I look down and the aquarium still has murky and polluted water in it. Bits of mold and sediment cover the neon castles and other customary decorative structures in place. I think there's fish skeletons at one point, but don't want to look to closely. Shrunken gray sea anemones litter the fluorescent sand as well.
There's a tiki bar built to look like it had coral overgrowing its front. The stools are carved and ornate, made to look like someone's idea of an angry Polynesian god.
All of a sudden the enormity of the situation comes crashing down on me. I can't cope with this, it's late, it's dark, I have to get back to Noland so we can figure this out. Wandering around this insane architecture is not getting me anywhere, it's just making me lose myself in a world of hypotheticals and speculative nonsense.
[[Wait what, am I lost?->lost]]Noland reads through the Choose Your Own Adventure book, but switches to the J. Paul Getty book after he dies for the fourth time.
“Damn, I didn't know that he got paid by Playboy to write this.”
"I don't even know who J. Paul Getty is. Why's he so significant?"
"Beats me, I guess because he made a ton of money off of people. Hey, listen to this—during the Great Depression he bought up all the oil stocks because no one else had the money to purchase them. He says that successful businessmen are the rebels of the status quo."
"Anybody who doesn't side with the oppressor is the rebel of the status quo," I say drowsily as I adjust my head on the folded up comforter.
"Sounds like Paul Getty could have learned something from being shrunk down, just like Tina and Timmy Teeny did before those ants got them."
[[I fall asleep to the sound of his voice.->Dreams]]Now this is amazing. The whole floor is rocks and moss, and there's what looks like a misting system like a grocery produce section would have, mounted way up on the ceiling.
There's no toilet, which I guess makes sense, and no drain to see, so I guess you just walk around in the mist and let yourself be cleansed.
What a delightful thought.
There's mushrooms everywhere now, and it looks like it might be breaking through the floor in parts. The hanging planters and pots arrayed around are all dried up and dead, the room cold and still.
The doorway through says 'This Way To The Tiki Bar Dance Floor'
[[I guess it's time, I go through to the Tiki Bar Dance Floor. ->Tiki Dance Floor]]
I enter into a long hallway, with a large flatscreen tv embedded in the wall facing the door to the outside.
Large fiberglass figures have been placed in kneeling and sitting poses and then embellished with blankets as places to sit and take selfies, presumably. As good as any fiberglass chair, really. Or maybe they're art?
[[Go through the door to the outside. -> Pathway Outside]]
[[I think the top of the staircase is through that way. ->Spiral Staircase Top]]There's a crisp outlined videogame mural underneath the dense layer of dirt and grime in the pool.
The pool is long dry and there's a thick compacted layer of leaf litter at the bottom.
It looks like an homage to some select videogame characters, mixed motifs, some from platformers, some from shooters, there's some I don't recognize.
It's hard to know what the right call is for the painting of the bottom of a private pool is, but not some pastiche of videogame fanaticism.
What would look better there? David Bowie? God, people can be so weird.
There's a small pile of bird bones near the pool, looks like something died in midflight. Maybe a crow, it's bigger. The skull is clearly seperated from the body.
(if:visits is 1)[I pick up the skull and carefully wrap it in a tissue from my pocket.]
[[Step back away from the pool.->Interior Courtyard]]Passing over a concrete walkway, small untended topiaries and miniature hedges overgrown and spotty with holes. Looking over the side of a hedge backing up outdoor stone walkway lights and settings of miniature maple and
curly filbert, you can see a pool and an interior courtyard of the house from here.
It looks like there's another building at the end of the path, a whole entire free standing structure off further back here on the property.
It smells nice out here. The crispness in the air combined with the light touch of the ocean, it smells like douglas fir and seaweed, mushrooms and cedar.
[[Go over to the building and see what's going on there.->Mother In Law]]Going around the building, there's no sign of anything inside at all, an unconnected stove that looks expensive and a few boxes on their sides. The door is locked and there's a sign that says 'SERVICE ONLY'.
The birds chirp and the wind whistles through the trees, it's maybe less cold out here than it is in the house, is that even realistic? Seems like it would have to be some kind of shelter, big huge place like that blocked down with such certainty.
[[Go back down to the main house.->Hallway]](if:visits is 1)[Whatever I enter into is creepy in the dark — I reach for what I think is a light switch, but find a intermatic timer knob placed in a completely tiled wall instead. Even when I rotate it I'm still in the dark. The clicking makes for a creepy countdown of a metronome.
I can make out the faint impression of another clear door across from me. The floor is glassy and slippery as I carefully walk through. There's a spigot that seems for fitting for a garden nose protruding from each wall. It feels stuffy with the lack of air flow, I start to feel lightheaded. Was this some sort of sauna? It's suffocating enough for it to be fit for a gas chamber instead.
[[Go through to the bathroom.-> Shared Bathroom]]
[[Go through the smaller door.->Amphibious Bedroom]]]
(if:visits >= 2)
[I run back through the sauna gas chamber, careful not to slip on the tile floor.
[[Go through to the bathroom.-> Shared Bathroom]]]I'm no more comforted by the next space I enter. What is this supposed to be, a bedroom for a frog? There's a huge inflatable translucent lily pad decoration and oversized stuffed animals shaped to resemble houseflies scattered on top. There's even stock photos of exotic frogs framed and hanging from the walls, which are painted to look like some sort of textured crepe material.
I press down and the lily pad surface sure wobbles like there's a water bed undearneath, before I hit the hard floor. The support isn't adequate enough to support a person. Besides, there's no batteries or even a flashlight in here either.
[[Back into the sauna.->Sauna]]Once the room is at least partially lit by the morning light I start reorganizing my bag.
Noland sits up and watches me pack in silence, until he starts walking around the living room and stops to look out at the ocean view.
"I really thought this was gonna work out for some stupid reason," he says. "This place is impossible though. I don't know if it was hospitable before but it's sure not now."
"Can't we find another place to set up camp better than this?" I ask.
It's the architecture, the spirit that went into this place, the weird sense that whatever this was, it was a shrine to something that had plenty of power, and this, this was the horrifying result.
Noland gestures at the pile of things taken from the rooms, ready to pick up his pack and join me in leaving.
"Is there anything else you think we should take before we leave?"
The goat skull sitting on the lotus roots pods.
A handful of realtor cards.
A friendly plushy of a fly.
A framed notarized certificate declaring Johnny Fresh to be a Certified Fraud Examiner.
A tiger tiki from the Tiki Bar Dance Floor where I lost my mind for a second there.
The brand-new scissors.
An overgrown moss pots with toadstools.
The Bohemian Grove trophy.
"No," I say, "none of it's ours."
We go out through the back, through the taped up broken window. Before we leave I stare out at the ocean. I don't think we'll ever live by the water again.
The End.You could see for miles from a good view like this on the water, ordinarily. Not today with this fog and gloom and the weather like it's been, but probably on a decent day you can see all the way out. The windows are dusty and marred, long past having been kept clean and clear.
The water winks with grey, a flock of water birds passes by, nature must feel embarassed to look at this house.
No boats on the water.
Thick stands of trees on either side of the house obscure the view.
There's what look like abandoned dock pilings trailing off into the water near a boat house off to the left.
The dock pilings are spaced in the same pattern as the side tables with lamps without lightbulbs. They're placed up and down the diffusely lit room, but there are no seats. There is a pool table with a large bonsai placed in the middle of it. No pool cues either.
If this house was a machine, these rooms would be the parabolic mirrors that took in the beauty and then refined it to a laser point, aimed back at the cause of all that beauty.
[[Go back to the circular room.->Circular Room]]