The Other Side of Nowhere
It was another steamy hot summer’s day at my grandparent’s house a few miles off the coast of
Mississippi. It was like any typical summer day when we visited as it always promised and delivered
on fun and adventure. The full Buck Moon was hanging like a ghost above their house even though
it was daylight. The house was old, having been built around 1900, and was a tall two stories of
weathered, unpainted gray boards. The old blue shingled roof was so steeply pitched I think an owl
would slide off of it.
My cousins and I, all fifteen of us, were out in the yard where our parents chased us. We were too
rowdy and full of energy to be inside for very long. The yard was flat and there was a huge old oak
tree that I used to think was large enough to hollow out and live inside. In the back there was the
remnants of an ancient pecan tree orchard. There had once been a thousand acres of farmland, but
my grandparents had to sell off the land, bit by bit, in order to survive. Now, except for the five
acres around the house, everything was long overgrown in trees and brush.
I yelled at my parents that I was going to the Other Side of Nowhere, so they’d know where I was.
My cousins were taking too long to decide.
“Hey, let’s wait on Robin. She wants to come, too,” one of my cousins said.
“I’m not waiting any longer. She’ll take forever. I’ll see you all down there,” I said and trudged off
into the piney woods through the hoary pecan orchard.
I went past the garbage dump where my grandparents burned their garbage. A squirrel began to
scold me for disturbing it from high in an old oak tree. I pushed past the screening brush and
entered the forest where dappled light played like small children at recess. As I passed beyond the
gully that we called The Caves, for some unknown reason, the forest changed from mostly pines to
oaks and other hardwoods. I had my Marble’s brass lapel compass, just like the one Teddy Roosevelt
had used. This was a prerequisite for any proper explorer.
It was hot and still, even in the shade of the trees as I hiked. Even the birds were still. It was hot,
just plain hot. It was morning and that meant the afternoon was going to be unbearably hot and
dusty. I didn’t mind it, as long as I had a good garden hose to drink from. Where I was going the
water was cold and clear. I’d be cool soon enough, so I hiked on and the distance piled up behind
me.
Eventually, I climbed a hill topped by giant pine trees and knew I was getting close. On the
downside, the sandy soil that had once been a seabed, was liberally sprinkled with iron ore. Iron was
not native to the area and my father, a NASA scientist, thought a meteor had struck the Earth at that
place long ago in the distant past. The hill I was descending was actually the eroded wall of the
impact crater.
I looked at my compass and the pointer was swinging around and around. I knew I was getting close
and then the vegetation changed, again. I passed weird pitcher plants that were slowly, but greedily,
devouring flies and bees. Then the vegetation became more jungle-like. The trees and seeminglytropical plants were closing in. Mixed within were wild natural honeysuckle trees and tupelo gum, as
well as ferns and plants I didn’t know.
I crossed the clear, tea stained stream that marked the boundary of the Other Side of Nowhere and
entered into the weird. In that place, the whole atmosphere seemed odd, somehow. That was what
had long fascinated us about that place. It was much worse on that particular day than any time I
remembered in my few short years of life. The light seemed diffused somehow, and my compass
wasn’t working. I should have been headed north, but I couldn’t even see the sun through the trees
and there were no shadows on the ground under the thick canopy. Everything was a deep green
gloam.
As I approached another stream in the deep twilight, I stepped up on a log. It was well I did, too!
On the other side was a huge cotton mouth snake! The darkly banded demon slithered off into the
water without bothering me, but this was the reason why we were taught never to step over a log.
I was headed to our swimming hole, deep in these haunted woods. As I walked, I was struck again
by the weirdness of the place and more so on this day. It was like a person having mild
hallucinations, or something. Everything was, I don’t know how to describe it, sort of blurred and
bent, or something. I thought it might have been the heat. I suddenly stopped! Was that someone
ahead of me? I thought I saw somebody through the densely packed trees! I couldn’t be sure
because the vegetation was so thick.
There! I seemed to see him or her, again! Just a shape, just a hint, nothing more. I couldn’t be sure if
it was a man or a woman, but it was not a deer or a cow. The hair stood up on my head. The way it
had seemed to move wasn’t natural. I had my large lock back folding knife in my pocket. I put my
hand on it for a bit of security. No one knew of this place and no one lived within many long miles.
This area was just inside the Mississippi State Line from Alabama and very near the coast. There was
nothing but swamp and dense semi-jungle for miles. Who could that be?
I called out, “Hello?”
I got no answer. Only silence, not even a bird call. Not even a bird call? That gave me the creeps
because there was always at least a crow cawing, or something. Not that day.
It was hot.
I pushed on to the swimming hole. It was a deep, clear pool shaded by the trees and in a
perpetual green gloam. Was I going in the right direction? Things didn’t look right. I tried to see the
sun, but even the sky I saw seemed odd, somehow. My compass was useless and I knew not to
depend on the old wive’s tale about the moss growing on the north side of trees.
Everywhere there were vines hanging through the trees. The Spanish Moss hung in long witch’s
tresses from the tree limbs. The moss should have been sort of grayish, but this was brownish
green, somehow. Was it the light? I wasn’t certain. I suddenly found I wasn’t certain of anything.
Finding a relatively open spot, I drove a stick into the ground to track the sun so I could get
directions. Nothing. There was no shadow! How could that be? If there was light there had to be a
shadow! I looked at my watch and then I stopped dead still. My watch had stopped! I wasn’t sure I
could use my watch as a compass and I couldn’t tell the direction of the sun, in any case.Think! I had to think! I should know my way around and how to get back to my grandparent’s house. I’d been down to that place hundreds of times, but everything was weird and nothing was right! How long had I been gone? I was hungry so it must be well after lunch, which I hadn’t eaten.
Panic, don’t panic. Think!
Suddenly, I saw that person filtering through the trees! “Hey! Can you help me?”
No answer.
“Which way to the road?”
Still no answer. Everything was deathly and unworldly quiet.
I started off in the direction I had seen that man or woman go. I twisted and dodged through the
foliage and around oddly distorted trees. There! another glimpse. I kept up my pursuit, but whoever
it was remained just out of clear sight.
“Hey! I need help!”
Not a word in reply.
I kept going, pushing through my hunger and fear. Whoever it was went through a screen of brush.
I was getting closer. I rushed headlong through it after him, or her, and broke through the other
side.
My cousins were all milling around. “Robin! Come on! We want to get back before lunch!” one of
them called.
I looked at my watch. It hadn’t stopped! It was still the same moment I left for the Other Side of
Nowhere!
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