SECOND ONE.
ARTHUR.
If one day, someone came up to you and suddenly offered you a free vacation to an unknown yet a beautiful mountain town, however mysterious and hidden it may be to the world. That too with all your expenses paid, a vacation house exclusively yours to use, and a monthly six-figures being deposited to your bank account on point on time. And the best part, you had to do next to nothing- what would you do?
Like any sane person, you would go through a roller-coaster of emotions. Your brain would take a trip to different past experiences. Your mind would provide different – voluntary or involuntary – responses for your body to act upon. Like-
Curious- Really? All for free? No job but you get to have all the fun and money? Only to relax?
Vigilant- why would this person offer me such a great leisure trip while he can enjoy this thing with and by himself? What would he gain from this?
Then you would question their motives. You would ask them something, anything. Something along the simple lines such as,” Are you sure you want to give up such a tempting opportunity? Why would you be so generous?”
Then the said person would provide you with some convincing explanation like how he is short of time to visit anymore or how he wants you to have more “fun” in life etc.
You would be wary at first. But if you knew the said person as well as I did know Mr. Sanders, you would also waste no time in being convinced that his motives were, indeed, genuine.
Then you would be feeling ………….
Disbelief- This is too good to be true! I bet I happen to have landed on the best deal of life I ever could!
Giddy- Great! Now I can finally have myself out of the mundane daily mess and have some time to myself. I can laze off my days and worry about nothing.
Excited- I can’t wait any longer. I am going to have the best time I can have in my entire life. With me, just me.
And finally,
Happy- Finally. Nothing between me and my lovely passions I was once passionate about.
Yes. If you are sane person, you would.
But note,
“If, you are a sane person.”
Arthur Whitaker would.
But I couldn’t. Or rather didn’t.
The feeling part, at least, I didn’t entertain.
But the acting part where you have to act like you feel; I definitely deserve an Oscar for that.
And after all the “careful consideration”, here I am. Looking out of my train window, of the train coach surpassing and leaving behind sceneries in the wake of moving forward.
“Man! The humidity is gonna be the death of my hair!”, groans my lovely friend. “Seriously though! Sanders could not have given you a place worse than this. Why would you accept the offer, Arthur?”
“Its not that bad, stop whining like a kid. I have thought about this, Fred. About everything. Hard.”
He groans and rolls his eyes as he whines more, “I did my research about this town, buddy. This place is batshit crazy.
The necessary services are almost null, the telephone line is in tatters and no one outside knows much of this town. This place is located so much secretively in the outskirts of the country, in the dense woods and amidst rocky cliffs and hills.", he melodramatically counts all of them on his fingers.
"And what’s more? No news comes out of this place. No one knows what kind of bad things will happen. Definitely haunted.”
“And beautiful.”, I said with a smile on my face. As far as I had done my homework on this place, I had no complaints. This place was a topic of interest among some nature photographers, albeit many years ago. And all those photographers only had immense beauty to showcase in their pictures.
The naturality and subtilty of the dense woods of cedar and pines, the artistic adorations by the rocky cliffs and hills; the best part would have to be the rumored lake – The Withered Lake.
“Its not you. It’s the writer in you. You don’t- Agh! Who am I even arguing with.”, and with his finality he faced away from me. For the whole hour, he remained quiet, sulking like a child with his arms crossed on his chest.
I shall not raise an objection over his perspective of this town. Fredrick Jonas was a normal person like everyone else. He was just a dear old friend who had accompanied me on this trip because it worried him, worried him how his friend was being sent over to a place no one had ever heard of. And for Jesus knows how long.
And was right to raise an objection. He was an employee in a tech giant. His job demanded him to be practical. Like many out there. Practical and realistic. No practical and realistic person would ever want to visit a place known to be “where the sun never shines”.
The Town of Oakwood is the mysterious town infamous for being the place where the sun never shines. Meaning for most part of the year, the skies resemble graphite and the surroundings are covered with heavy fog. The mornings are blessed with cold mists and the area almost seems desolate. Almost – had it not been the flourishing greens covering the town.
The inhabitants are very few. And the locals rarely travel outside the town. It has a silent, eerie aura to it that would scare most people. And one of the many reasons people are wary of this place is because the town itself is not as flourishing as its nature. Outside communication was hampered. It was difficult to travel away due to rough terrain and not so favourable weather; all of which sabotaged much of the development.
It can be successfully described as a winter town. The town remains exceptionally beautiful all year long with its breathtaking nature and cool climate; but it is picturesque in the winters. Heavy sheets of snow as white as the light cascades the town and covers it deep for months. I have been enamored by the beauty of its snowy winters- as beautiful as a newly-wed bride.
Only in the months of April and May is it graced with some warm rays of the sun. That is the time most photographers like to visit. Rest of the months, no one does really. Especially in Octobers like todays, unless there are people with circumstances resembling ours.
It was especially chilly and foggy in the Octobers as Mr. Sanders had warned us. This month marked the onset of winters, after all.
But, as Fred had said, it might be the writer in me that thought all too well about this inconspicuous town. But being a writer is being a person who is far from the societal norms of reality and practicality. For us writers, these two words change and mold themselves both implicitly and explicitly. One day if our reality is that the earth is round, then the other day it changes to earth being shaped like a box.
Do not take it as a face value. What I would like to convey is that we change and create new realities and practicalities. And we create worlds that accept these newfound norms. And even when we do not create new ones, we try to find a new perspective out of something that is unfathomable for the general public.
I had found my new perspective in this town. It was modelled as a perfect setting for a work of Edgar Allen Poe or a Lovecraftian novel- eerie and quiet; and dark and mysterious.
And I had found my reality in that. The beauty and solace were all that mattered. The haunting peace was what I found comforting.
The mundane life of the filthy rich but noisy megacities were not for me. Here, I could write and breathe and explore as much as I liked.
And I was looking forward to what was to come. And someone was waiting for me to come to them.
*
