Half-Life
It’s the last day of July already. Where has the season gone? Summer lasts a short breath, pleasurable like a woman's moan, winter stretching like a groan. I think the state of things has warped my perception of time… lacking pain and suffering, its flown by in this paradisaical, halcyon existence. The FT remote gig gives me flexibility to do what I want to do, and now I spend my days writing and drawing and riding and shooting. BUT, at this rate I’ll be in my 70’s come tomorrow and dead by Friday. Of course it would be a Friday.
Closed down the Boulder library and had 3 hours till sunset, so I hung out by the creek and warmed my frigid body in the sun like how lizards do. Sitting in the A/C for so long makes it feel like winter, and damn if this body just doesn’t hold heat. Once I felt human again, I rode over to to Rocky Flats Wildlife Reserve to shoot the abandoned ranch for sunset. I remember bringing a friend here once and we had turned around just outside the parking lot when we were stopped by a MASSIVE sign with the international radiation warning plastered across it. Before becoming a reserve, the area was used by the Atomic Energy Commission to refine plutonium for Trident warheads. The program was cancelled in the 80’s under the Bush administration though, and the area became part of a federal Superfund effort to decontaminate it. But that was two years ago that we were here and now the gate was open and the sign was gone, so good enough for me. I'm sure it's fine for visitors. Just drink a lot of water if you go. Like a lot of water.
After a good hour of hurriedly walking the plains and worrying I wouldn’t find the ranch before dark, I found it just as the sun was getting ready to set. The ranch was not the placid place I saw online when Googling local places to shoot. If the place had a soundtrack, it would be a lone cello with the bow scraping the G string. It was a sullen place as I’ve ever seen, alone in a sea of grass. Although maybe it’s not all empty… I was in Dearfield, a ghost town left of the great depression east of here when I came across a snake inside an abandoned house like the one here. So I felt tension for what was around, or what I imaged was around. And as the vesper sky emerged and the coming dark bolstered my imagination, I thought of what lingered around me.
It was profoundly disconcerting at evening, waiting for the haunts to come, waiting for what's in store, waiting for withered fingers to reach out and grab you from the dark. Wind begins to rustle through the grass and ominous clouds hunch overhead, watching me. And the sun nears the horizon, and that dreadful moment comes where it goes under and you're left alone in the dark with the fresh monster. And then the sun sets and the inherent creepiness grows exponentially with each following moment. Old wooden boards creek and moan as the buildings come alive. "Sscreeeeeech" the barn exclaims suddenly, and I look back to see where the wind lifted a loose panel on the roof and slammed it down against the rafters. Another gust blows through and the barn reaches into the air with its loose panel. The gust swirls past me and in dreadful anticipation i watch helplessly as the winds lets go of the panel and it begins to swing back to its body. Crack! The lifeless sound puts the fear into me.
