today, friday 13th, i had two things scheduled to happen. 1 was taking my drivers test (not really relevant to the purgatory thing but i feel the need to include it on the basis of friday 13th fuckery), 2 was picking up my diploma. as it turns out, somewhere between home and the dmv a taillight went out, so the administrator wouldnt let me take the test, and rescheduled me to NOVEMBER. so thats how my 9am went.
with that under our hats, me and my mom went to find my diploma.
it started bad. google maps did not recognize the address as existing. it took us several tries to convince it there was a west school avenue in anywhere but california, and when we finally did, the street names didn’t match. some of them just didn’t match the physical signs, but others changed or disappeared in the map itself. and as we approached, we discovered that the facility we were looking for was not only off the road, but the only way to get to it was through a backwoods neighborhood, inhabited EXCLUSIVELY by hicks sitting on their porches and judging us for some unknown sin.
finally, google says we’ve arrived. surely not, we whisper. please no. jesus christ. we’re faced with what appears to be a small penitentiary, the front of which is plain white with massive blinded windows, and the only parking in sight is through a gigantic chain-link fence. there is no signage anywhere whatsoever to indicate whether we’re allowed in, but there’s nowhere else to stop without blocking the teeny little road, so we pull in. the energy of this place is absolutely befuckened. we’re talking deserted. the parking lot is jam-packed, but there’s not a human in sight. it’s not a closed building either, more like a campus, with dozens of doors opening onto little courtyard areas. the doors are all either unmarked or covered in seemingly arbitrary words and numbers. some of them have strangely large locks and no knobs. some of them have keypads.
well by now we’re both thoroughly fuckin spooked, so my mom calls my dad to explain we were gonna be a little uh late and i go to find. something. anything. civilization, perhaps. i find a little hallway to the front of the building, where i can now see a gigantic sign declaring the name of the facility. the letters are two feet tall, but the exact same color as the roofing behind them. they are not faded. they were painted that way. beneath them is an easily 4-meter-tall arched metal gate, which is the only opening on the entire front of the otherwise clean building, and, therefore, logically represents the main entrance.
directly inside and left of the gate is a door with a cartoonishly large keypad lock and a sign which reads ‘NOT AN ENTRANCE.’ there are no arrows and no directions.
i turn around and head the opposite direction, down a long hall. at the end of it is a set of double doors which are shrouded in darkness. i’m about 30 feet away when there’s a flicker of movement behind the doors. then, out of the shadows, steps an old hick. “you look lost.” he says. “y-eAh” i reply. he enquires what i’m there for, and i explain my diploma. he directs me to a door next to a blue car. there is no logical way for the car to be inside the buildings courtyard, but it is no less next to a door. as i turn to see where i’m being directed, a young woman seemingly materializes in the middle of the hallway perpendicular to us, walking briskly. without slowing she turns to me, says “she’s making a pb&j sandwich,” and carries on her way. when i turn around the man is gone. when i turn back, she’s gone too. i run for my mom.
ngl at this point im dead fucking sure she wont be where i left her and when i find her the car will be gone and we’ll be trapped in this hellhole if we don’t get out before sunset, but she’s there, and we go and enter the door. inside we can hear idle chatter from an adjacent office. after a few seconds a woman comes out. she does not ask who we are. she asks whose diploma we want. we tell her mine. she pulls it out of a stack of loose paper, hands it to us without another solitary word, and bids us farewell.
mom drove outta there about 70mph and tbh i wouldve done the same that was an evil place and i do not plan on returning
You went to Hell’s waiting room
“the energy of this place is absolutely befuckened”
it’s ninety-nine degrees outside, four fuck-thousand percent humidity, and my husband was like, “i’m gonna go for a bike ride.” and i was like “why. no. why. don’t put us on the news like that. local fool collapses on unnecessary journey. don’t do it.” so he says he doesn’t want to “hide in the house” because the sun is shining. bruh. honeybruh. “the sun is shining” does not cover it. its hot outside. its motherfucking hot as fuck outside. our outdoor plants have been crying into their hands all week. whole cars are melting into the sewer. our fucking patio umbrella developed sentience to ask me for lemonade this morning
@robotmango, you need to work for the weather forecast – this was both hilarious and so vivid it made me stand up and get some iced tea.
this is a great idea, thank you. here goes. my audition tape for the weather channel. dearly beloved. we are gathered here today to have a fucking funeral for the outdoors. it had a good run, with all its creeks and clouds and shit. pretty great. now it’s ten-thirty at night but still ninety-two asshole-sweating degrees and humid as fuck. everything is hot and slimy, like being a “borrower” that got trapped inside a bottle of shampoo and then accidentally microwaved. you can see on my doppler radar that nothing is moving around out there because everything is probably dead. the only alive thing is the mosquito currently trying to drill a hole in my leg. no surprise that all the shitbag mosquitos are fine, since the thermostat of hell is always at the devil’s preferred temperature. this forecast has gotten away from me a little, but in conclusion fuck the sun
Never turn around to check behind you. You’ll see nothing, but once you start doing it you won’t be able to stop, and an ominous feeling will follow you until you don’t lock your house’s door behind you.
If you stand very still and listen you will hear the woods calling for you. Don’t answer. Never answer.
You’ll hear things quietly following you, hidden in the trees by your sides. It’s okay, they’re just checking on you.
Don’t be scared, but be really, really wary.
If you have a bad feeling about taking a certain path, don’t. You’ll avoid whatever is waiting for you at the end of it.
You never know what may be buried under the soil you’re walking on. Remember that every time you take a step. Pray that whatever it is, it won’t wake up.
Be careful not to step on any beetle, or you’ll never get rid of them.
If you bring a knife with you, name it. Otherwise the blade will turn against you as soon as you try to use it.
Make sure you remember the way back home. As soon as you get lost, you’re just another piece of fresh meat.
i was talking to max about how my hometown in NC has changed since he’s been gone and he pointed out that our town is quickly becoming a wtnv situation. for instance:
apparently our high school, which is 96 years old and looks like a 16th century gothic castle (complete with lion gargoyles), has a fourth floor that no one really knew about until this year. no one knows how long it’s been in the building but from pictures it looks completely different than the rest and has a strange metal staircase in a spiral pattern.
there is also a basement in the high school with a swimming pool but no one is allowed down there and it is starting to rot the first floor.
for a good while there was a nice elderly black man that would stand outside of random stores and street corners and dance to make people smile. however, in the past few months he has disappeared and is nowhere to be found.
we have a kapstone paper mill in our town and it is regularly normal but some days the smell is absolutely overwhelming and blankets the town like a thick fog.
the abandoned movie theater is blocked off to the public but i was talking to some girls from school about it who occasionally break in to chill what it is like on the inside, and they said that there is a giant, bottomless hole in the entrance’s floor so they have to tiptoe across a single plank of wood to get to the other side.
fairly popular places in town will close down for literally no reason.
one time a tornado came through our town and it destroyed the sonic drive-in and a car dealership next to it but no debris could be found. only the empty lots were there. they rebuilt the sonic in less than a month but the car rental lot was kept empty and now bored teenagers harp around it like vultures.
one time my grandmother saw an unidentified animal in our backyard. she thought it was a fox but when my dog barked at it, it stood up on its back legs and ran away.
fox and coyote sightings are becoming strangely frequent in one single area of town and no one knows why???? its like they all congregate near a horse stable by an old junkyard my cousin used to work at.
whenever a dog runs away from home they all end up coming to my house. every dog that gets loose.
my grandmother saw an unidentified bird in a tree and i still can’t figure out what kind it was based on her description.
sometimes you can hear random gunshots and loud, unknown bestial screams in the uptown areas
there’s probably more but i don’t really get out much. these are just things that i’ve witnessed myself or is common knowledge in town.
another addition:
everyone forgets our mayor’s name and we’re not sure who our current mayor even is
there is a Starbucks on campus. you go there enough to have the employees’ names memorized, but there seems to be new people each time you go. this is your third venti latte of the day. you hand the cashier your punch card. they rip a new star-shaped hole with their nails. when you look at their name tag to thank them, all you see are chalk paint scribbles. it doesn’t matter. there’ll be someone new by the time you return in an hour.
you spend every night on the fourth floor of the library. there is only one room on that floor, full of windows. the rest of the floor is kept behind locked doors that claim to be “SPECIAL COLLECTIONS.” it is always just on the cusp of the sunset when you arrive to the fourth floor, and the sky darkens to pitch-black within minutes. you check your watch. it’s 3pm. the lights of the campus twinkle back at you. you drink your venti latte.
did you know you have an essay due tomorrow? you sit down to work on it. as you open your word document, a web browser video suddenly opens instead. you click it closed. it opens again. this time, it’s playing a new episode of House of Cards on Netflix. you’ve never seen this episode. you click it closed an hour later. did you know you have an essay due in an hour? you open your word document.
“The student center will be under renovation for a while,” the chancellor announced with a close-lipped smile. how long? you asked. “Oh, you know.” they offered a vague hand waggle. “Probably a few months. Maybe a year? We’ll just have to wait and see.” they direct you to the architectural firm that will be handling the project. when you hunt down the building, a trio of dogs growl at you from behind a 6 foot fence. barbed wire sparkles like frost. all of the lights in the building are off, and grass grows between the cracks in the parking lot. you make a u-turn and head back to campus.
your bio lecture has 143 students in it, your teacher announced on the first day of class. when she uses the iClickers to take roll, you always choose B. there are 70 students in the class, your teacher announced a week later. only 35 by midterms. now it’s finals week. you can only see one other student out of the corner of your eye. there is something hungry about him. you don’t know if you’ll be able to press B again, next week.
sparksoffandommagic 